Well, you'd certainly see this in Warship designs. In civilian/merchant ships though, I think that, given the economic models that we have for trade, larger vessels like the Star Lord, Monolith, and even the Potempkin (sans weapons) classes (or designs very like them) would be the rule, rather than the exception.
I base this on real-world shipping - transshipping cargo is profitable only in bulk for anything other than "novelties", like spices, jewelry or artwork. The shipping model in use here is termed "lighter aboard ship", describing the interaction of dropships with their carriers -- the FTL ship does not land on a planet, but carries the dropship to a point in-system, where the dropship (the "lighter") either 'cross-decks' to another Jumpship, or heads into the system to rendezvous with a station or land on a planet.
The catch is that a ship derives commercial profitability in only two ways: low-mass/high-value cargoes, or high-mass/low-value ones. In almost all cases, the only realistic cargoes available are high-mass/low-value (grain, water, ores, gases, consumer goods) -- which dictates that the more dropships you carry, they more profit you turn...Of course, that requires larger vessels to accommodate more cargo loads. In my view, ships with fewer than 6 docking collars, with the sole exception of the Potemkin, should almost all be military- or government-operated, because they will simply have too hard a time maximizing their profits to keep up with overhead.
As a result, whether in 2750, 2800 or 3025, there should be huge numbers of Star Lords and Monoliths, but comparatively few Scouts, Merchants or Invaders...
My ç0.02 C-Bills.....
