Here's my thinking on the subject: because you have a ship designer, people want to use it in ways that make sense for a ship designer. Unfortunately the current ship designer is pretty much cosmetic. But given how neat the general concept is and how cool they are in tactical games, I think a lot of people are clamoring for tactical combat.
Really they go hand in hand. It seems wasteful to have one without the other. Hardpoints, targetted shots, disabling ships etc, etc.
Though ultimately a combination of both may be what people are looking for; after all many capabilities of a system that handles all these things don't really matter without the strategic element. I'm talking about sending a set of fighters just to try and take out another ship's hyperdrive because you fear it, but your main fleet won't arrive in time otherwise. Again tactical decisions often go together nicely with strategic systems. Now this could be included into the system abstractly; e.g. concentrate on "attack, defense & retreat; disable ships", but you would still loose out on an immense amount of potential.
