Yeah, this was originally partly modeled on the bombers in SupCom to be honest, which did much the same thing. Then as they evolved, they kind of kept that jump -- which is really important when it's you with the bombers, for stuff like force fields and the like. Cruisers and other longer-range ships are the quick cure for this. The other reason for this high shielding is that it makes them very dangerous and effective on raids (against you or by you).
In the case of Raid Starships, those might take a really long time to kill bombers, but the bombers won't do much damage to them. The Spire starships and dreadnoughts ought to do a much better job against bombers in general, sprite especially. Also deflector drones and other long-range high-powered stuff like that.