Yeah even if the standardisation date is 2240 and we push that earlier... I mean for very obvious reasons I'd love the mental image of a Kea with a rapid fire launcher, I'm conscious of engaging in wishful thinking. Even if there's a general shift to the Rapid Launcher, there will be some depreciated production lines, tooling and parts and so on for the old launchers, and as this nears obsolescence it becomes almost "free" in the short term. The point about standardisation is a good one though, that does feel very Starfleet.
It would admittedly have a sort of poetic rhythm to it if we were initially considering the torpedo launchers due to a postwar production glut meaning we had a lot of them hanging around, and then instead we end up refitting them when there's essentially another temporary surplus because the production lines are all winding down. But I am quite happy to clutch any shred of a justification for a Kea leaping out of a nebula and obliterating a D6 attacking a Newton with a salvo or six torpedoes.
This is a very weird deja-vu feeling for me, because I started by arguing against this very idea, and then went around to the Half-Saucer based the cost/benefit seeming more compelling - whilst still wanting to cram loads of Engineering into a big secondary hull, and (god willing) a medical option and at least one other Science-raising thing into the saucer.
Very much agreed entirely with you that trying to turn the Enterprise into a "pure warship" would be a mistake; partly because it will make it an objectively worse warship if we can't fit in enough Engineering or medical facilities! But I don't see the Half-Saucer as being like, the crucial determinant there? It has the same internal space and will fit as many or more Internals in; the only thing we need to be sure of is going for a big secondary hull.
