Having been a fan of IJN (their tactics and machinery, not political), reading about the exploits of Kido Butai and their exploits in the Pacific, the epic imagination of how the Hiryu aircraft carrier with a displacement of 17600 tons, managed to dodge torpedos after torpedos (although given American torpedos, the end result would be the same); I have never ride an ship before, but fast turbine boats I have; the waves, the forces encountered zooming in a straight line is amazing, I can’t imagine the tense moment of having to turn to dodge torpedos.
Anyway, do you prefer fast or big and slow guns? For me, being a IJN fan, I chosne the Japanese destroyers first which has poor firepower (relatively), it made me have a unfavorable view of the naval game mode, until I learned to use the Long Lance torpedo and there is one ship that has stick with me since then; the IJN Akizuki.
With only HE shells with filler less than even a KG, and 8x 100mm guns, the punch it delivers is weak, but it makes up for this shortcoming with fast reload, decent accuracy, and the fastest velocity (1000m/s). I like the consistency of the guns, and the fact that I have a higher chance to hit the enemies doing some damage even if it only yellows some modules.
On the other hand, I have never liked big and slow guns; the Kako for example, with a 200mm inaccurate gun with 20s reload, does not amaze me. Hence, I avoid it if I can.
I main the Russian premium destroyer, and the USS Frank Knox, which I see as a middling ground between the big guns and the fast guns; they have some capability to denotate ammo rack and are pleasant to use. The Russian 130mm guns, while imprecise and few in number, blacks any modules it manage to hit, which is pretty much the same if you had an 200mm gun.