Miniturising and what not would all be a development cost though, more than a production cost. Once you have done it once you are not getting the money (or whatever it is they use to measure economic expenditures) back. Assuming you need specialized equipment to make it, be it replicators or machine tools, you have to create them to make the first one and they are still there when you are done. Once all that is created you just have the cost of raw materials, time and energy running it all.Sionnach Glic wrote:The Defiant is also capable of taking on vessels many times its size, indicating that there's some seriously powerful weapons and generators built into it, comparable to much larger ships. The cost of not just building those, but also miniturising them enough to fit into such a small hull can't be low.
Really, there are only two realistic reasons as to why Starfleet never built more Defiants. Either because of mass stupidity (and as one of Starfleet's more vocal critics on this site, I'd have no problem believing that), or because there was some other factor preventing their production. In this instance I'm willing to give Starfleet the benefit of the doubt.
I would tend towards the mass stupidity angle honestly. They started building them in numbers once the Dominion War got going. Simply put I think they fell into the trap the US Navy has fallen into post Cold War. They get enamored with ships that can do a bit of everything and fail to see the value of something that just does one thing really well.