and people who have risen to Sr levels in large bureaucracies are more resistant to change because with new ideas comes risk to your career if they fail. Until something new is proven, those in charge will continue to push what they know.

I think in some ways we are seeing it now again. We continue to build bigger and more expensive carriers because bigger is better and it creates economies of scale in the bureaucratic mind. Problem is, as tech improves the weapons to take out the carriers get better, the eggs in fewer basket issue starts to pop up. But the bureaucracy moves slowly and risk taking and counter thought is not promoted....continuing the status quo is. The carrier is the 20th century's power projector, what will be the 21st?