First of all, THANK YOU for allowing core designs to be upgraded. That was at the top of my wish-list.
I've found two glitches with the feature, however.
1) When I select a core design and click "upgrade," the hull appears in the ship designer with ALL components, including jewelry, stripped away. Kinda defeats the purpose. User designs behave normally -- i.e., with jewelry intact, and functional components stripped or not stripped, depending on your settings.
2) If the core design uses a hull that is not currently available, the hull icon in the list of components along the top of the design screen won't match the hull of the ship. For example, in the very early game, you can get access to the (Terran) Defender before researching any hull technologies. The Defender uses a small hull type that is not yet unlocked. If you try to upgrade it, you'll be able to use the correct Defender hull, but the icon at the top of the screen shows the basic, flat wedge-shaped hull (the only small hull you currently have access to).
Thanks again!