this Strategy must be broke

[Raging Deadstar]

It is however a good way of keeping ahead in the Technology upgrade game. As Races build ships and retrofit them or wait for the old obsolete class get destroyed you add the latest tech to your upgrades for the shell and retrofit pretty quick, It may cost more but you can be assured around 20% of your fleets are top of the line..

Against a Human this strategy would be defeated, the Ai however would probably get it's backside handed to it.