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Eleventh Century Remnant wrote:
It might not be perfectly adapted for the relatively sparse, open running fights we see in the Rebellion- era EU. What the Empire needs there is more of a fighter-bomber, capable of engaging rebel fighter screens and fighting their way through to a target.
That's what the Assault Gunboat was for.
My pet theory here, and a general explanation for some of the more freakish TIEs, is that the Defender is pretty much the end of the line as far as performance goes. The Sienar design team have reached the natural limit of the technology, and they are painfully aware of that.
What actually happens after the Advanced/X7 leaves the drawing board is a mixture of searching round for another way forward, deliberately exploring possibilities previously rejected, and outright silly season. After all, they have the answer. Between the omnipresent /ln, the elite Interceptor, the long-range standard Avenger and the silver bullet Defender, there's nothing more the Imperial Starfleet actually needs.
So the overwhelming majority of the late- model freaks, like the Vanguard, Assault, Sentinel, Raptor, Aggressor, et al, are at best solutions looking for problems, usually some designer's private job creation scheme, at worst nothing more than industrial-grade goofing off.
Even the best of them- and the Sentinel/V38 (YT style cockpit with TIE wings) and Hunter probably are the best of the bunch- are competing for roles already filled. I reckon the Hunter is pretty much an F/A-18 equivalent, a light to medium multirole, and it's fatal flaw is payload. It may be slightly faster and more agile than the Starwing, but it can't take nearly as much abuse, nor do as much when it gets to the target.
The fact that the Starwing is a Cygnus design, not Sienar, is another reason for the thing. Sienar would want to get that lost market segment back. Presumably, they didn't.