I've begun to think that I prefer referring to it along the lines of "canon compatible", i.e. ships that might not ever happen in canon, but work within context of the series and don't necessarily go against anything previously established.

I'm the same way with ships, as long as it makes sense and that they can work in context of the series, so that's why I don't go for anything OOC, but that would be too distracting for me at least.