My point is ITU isn't built-in, so it isn't free, it is a choice where you have to make concessions.
Now if you're tight on OP with your weapons package already, coming up with extra OP means you'll
have to cut down somewhere.
Keep in mind that carriers, under the current system, have OP to fit a full weapons package,
and some to spare for vents/caps and maybe a hullmod or two. All other ships (typically) do as well.
Under the new system, given the (endgame) carrier will need the same as above, plus say
25 OP per bay for (endgame) fighters, putting cheap fighters (say 5 OP per, on 6 bays) there means
you've freed up 125 OP.
That makes the new carrier quite a bit more flexible than needed imho, and it complicates balance
considerations, when suddenly the problem is "there isn't a 5th useful subsystem I could get for my
leftover 30 OP" after you've maxed on vents, caps and weapons, instead of "do I take ITU or HS".
Same goes the other way round, if to a lesser extend. Say a cheap escort carrier that only sports
a couple of light turrets that don't do much in the grand scheme of things anyway. Do a full fit,
or run with only the smallest PD you can find and cram endgame fighters in there.
Hence imho it would be better to have a more fine-grained control over fighter size restriction, e.g. endgame
fighters require "large/hightech/whatever" bays plus a *moderate* amount of extra OP (e.g. 4 vs 7), especially
once mods come into play where modders deliberately stray from vanilla conventions.
(Disclaimer: I've actually read the blog, and for the record I don't see that much of an issue with the numbers
presented in there. However, I don't think that'll necessarily hold up for a heavily modded game, especially with
factions that revolve around "strong fighters", as they'd need to beef up more under the new system to stay true
to the theme, with OP costs on their fighters going along with it.)