[TeMPOraL]

I have the feeling weapons design & manufacturing looks the way it looks because the advanced countries aren't really fighting and expecting to fight any serious war with each other. This makes it safe for the contractors to suck excessive amounts of money from the government while delivering very little, and for the whole endeavour to become one big political battlefield.

War was always the thing that connected humanity to physical reality - 2+2 may very well be 10000 on the procurement document, but it'd better equal 4 when you're trying to aim your cannons at the invading forces. With no war, effectiveness (and thus good engineering) is no longer a strong criterion for success of a weapon design.