I’m right there with you - but I’d add “big polities” as well 1100 small worlds can still a large fleet afford (to quote Yoda). Thus the “exciting times” make a lot of sense - some of the best “small ship” stuff that I have done was Hard Times.
But I like the screens idea - with no Meson screens or Nuclear Dampers, big ships suddenly have big targets on their backs. You need clouds of escorts around a handful of big ships, and the big ships generally will not be front line combatants.. more like big ol carriers.
For years I’ve use the following for a full strength fleet:
Each BatRon is 6 Battleships/Dreadnoughts
Each ship in a BatRon has 1 CruRon and 1 DesRon
Each CruRon has 1 DesRon
So a full strength fleet would be
6 Battleships
36 Cruisers
252 Destroyers/Escorts etc
If we assume that the Battleships are fleet carriers, then we get to add a metric buttload ( larger than an imperial buttload but smaller than an asston) of fighters to the mix.
With no nuclear dampers, an attack fighter squadron with 1 or 2 big nukes on board each could really scare a big ship. And a 2500dtn ship with a meson bay or two could ruin someones day ;D
And as quick as that we have a Battlestar ;D
Over the years I've come to the conclusion that the problem isn't the big ships, it's the '/big worlds/'. Most worlds have quite small populations (the median and mode is 500,000), but the worlds with hundreds of millions or billions of people and TL8+ can afford stupidly big navies - that 'average' world above can afford over twenty Tigeresses or fifty-odd conventional 200 kDTon battleships.
If you want smaller ships and small navies in YTU, you need to find some excuse to remove the hi-pop, mid-high TL worlds.