[ckotchey]

Yeah, I thought about that too - but I think it'd be fine to see a fully-operational ship in the default (i.e. worst-case scenario) case, only to be "pleasantly surprised" to see that the ships is damaged when (a) a long-range scanner comes into range or (b) I enter a battle with it. This would be much more preferable than to have the frustration of saying "crips! I *know* I've seen this ship before!" and have to blow several mouse clicks & moves to dig around the ship design windows to see the information that should have been on the main screen.