My point was the fleet cap can be removed and replaced with an old-fashioned limit that varies by DP or similar stat (similar to pre-0.8a releases), and the limits would be calibrated low enough that you can safely bring about thirty frigates or fewer big ships. That would be removing the current fleet cap and replacing it with a more limited cap. Instead of bringing thirty ships of any size like now, you would bring either thirty small ships or less big ships.
I highly doubt Starsector will allow fleets with no upper bound (aside from computer dying) like in Endless Sky. Especially when Starsector has a battlemap size, and fights can breakdown in weird ways once there are too many ships.
As for Leadership in previous releases, if you did not have any, your limits were between about five frigates or one Conquest (Paragon in 0.5.4a). Anything more and you take penalties. With max Leadership and Fleet Logistics, it was between thirty to forty frigates or two or three capitals. Unskilled anything was weak, and skills were generally very powerful (though combat skills were defined more by perks).