Will exterior hull damage persist in such a way that it will obstruct the mounting operation of internal components if you don't repair it?
TL;DRExterior hull damage should not block mounting internal components, since extra obstacles aren't worth the cost, though damaged ships stay weaker and players are expected to repair.
No, it should not. As cool on a high-level concept as that could be, it would just pose a number of other technical challenges, to the point where the benefit or additional immersion in gameplay that could provide wouldn't really outweigh the cost. So we want you to be able to be changing out your components, to be fixing them, to be replacing them when needed, and not having a bunch of extra stopgaps on it. But in the same regard, you're not going to want to keep your ship flying around with a bunch of holes in it, because that means you are a weaker ship for it, where less damage will be needed to kill you, and dying is not good.
We're making the assumption that most players will always want to, as soon as they take damage, head to a safe area to repair their ship, or at least repair it to what they can afford if they don't have that much money.