Does Anyone Use Escorts?

[Noble713]

I've been working on my mod, and I'm screwing around with the ship sizes and types quite a bit. I've doubled the size increase for most classes from 100kT to 200kT, among other things. I started looking at the Escort, and considered removing it entirely.

1. It's so tiny it can barely hold 1 missile launcher when the game begins. When better tech is available, it just doesn't have room for the components necessary to survive (point defense, ECM, combat sensors).

2. The first tech that I queue up on the first turn is Ship Construction, so I have frigate tech by turn two. The escort is instantly obsolete.


So, like the title says, does anyone use these things? Is there a reason to keep them at all?