From a gameplay perspective, the only way a ram is going to damage a ship with battleship-class (3/32" or 1/8") armor is if the ramming vessel is going 35+ knots on the Big Gun speed chart. If you're not moving fast, you'll just bounce right off. It's really hard to punch a hole through that stuff. Since I started using my Viribus Unitis in combat, I have on quite a few occasions gone careening into a ship, either friend or foe and for various reasons, without inflicting any damage. And this was before I got my ship speed-checked, when it was running 30 knots. I cannot stress enough that damaging an armored ship by ramming is really, really hard. The biggest benefit that I see to allowing ramming isn't that it allows you to sink an opponent easily (it doesn't), it's that it simplifies the rule book and reduces pond-side arguments. Right now, most clubs have 1/3 of a page or more devoted to rules about ramming, and I still see several "discussions" about ramming each year, for absolutely no conceivable purpose. I see no harm in allowing ramming in a pre-dreadnought club, since none of the ships are sufficiently fast to damage each other, so why not eliminate 1/3 of a page worth of complicated and confusing rules and end those annoying "debates" once and for all?
