Some years back there were a number of discussions (some rather heated) discussing the ways that a 'large naval ships' & 'much smaller merchant ships' template could work w/i the 3I. When CT HG came out, I just figured, "Well, the IN needs monsters cuz' that's what is militarily necessary while the merchant fleets don't cuz' smaller ships do the job the best". As far as the the question of adequate revenue goes, there are a myriad of ways for the 3I to generate revenue. One that I proposed was a sort of 'membership fee' similar to what International Orgs like the UN charge their members here on earth. After all, why shouldn't the protection afforded to every member system by the 3I be paid for directly? There some others, & one guy, a historian from the UK who, I believe, is no longer on-list, pointed out that the Royal Navy was financed during the 'Age of Sail' with a level of taxation that some were arguing was too low to sustain the IN. And then there's the documented (one of the AZH cruisers, 'Children of the Marches' was originally financed by  the sector gov) ability of the subsector/sector govs to levy taxes. I've always figured that that was how the 'Colonial' (a separate & distinct 'subsector navy' in CT HG) naval squadrons & ground forces were financed. The 5thFw boardgame clearly indicates that the 'colonials' are separate from the 'regulars' altho they come under 'regular' command in time of war or other emergency, such as the concentration of both 'colonial' & 'regular' forces in a single system, combating the IneGivar, at the beginning of the 5thFw.

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