I am "anal" that way also. I will delete everything in a design just to keep things in "proper" order. I know it don't matter if the engines immed follow the cq, but it drives me nuts. That is what was so frustrating about my blunder. It should not have happened to MEEEEEE!
I have a plan, it's a good plan, I am gonna implement that plan, just as soon as I can get my head out of my arse. lol
What I need to try and get use to, is not using the "upgrade" button. I spend a lot more mouse clicks removing items from an upgrade. would be easier to just "create". I still have not got that down to intuition yet, but have been using the upgrade button to check which components are upgradable. It would be nice, it there was an indicator of what components were just upgraded (highlighted, boxed, anything)
Doobian, can't use them that way, because no engines=no supplies. besides, the support cost is too much for that. Might as well build a station or sats. No, the only viable options are reload save, or refit, or recycle.
On to my rant.... I read, and it would seem to hold true, that obsolete designs with 0 in service get the design deleted when the game turn switches from .9 to .0. Based on that info, I did all my upgrades, even if only a minor retrofit, so that i could clean out all the old designs. it's turn .0, and all those obsolete designs with 0 in service are still there!
What other factor does there have to be to get rid of the damn things! I hope they add a "delete design" opion in the next patch, or allow editing of a design that has 0 in service and 0 in build queue.