It seems to me that needing to pull over on the highway at every gas station just isn't as effective as a car that can drive from New York to Chicago with a fill up or two. But that's just my US$0.02. As to the second point, whether a ship is actually sunk by gunfire or if it's just damaged so severely that it's forced to scuttle doesn't matter; the same result occurs. On the other hand though, one shouldn't conflate the effectiveness of the design with the ship's specific fate; like I said somewhere else the other day, I doubt a KGV or SoDak could have stood up any better to the same level of pummeling that Bis endured at her last battle.