Maritime theory
I wrote my masters thesis on the influence of maritime theorists on German Naval strategy prior to WWII. Two of the basic schools of thought are:
Mahan - The outcome of a maritime conflict will be decided by a large scale battle between opposing fleets
Corbett - The outcome of combat at sea should be viewed as it relates to land warfare. Thus, your maritime strategyu should be geared to, what he called, "Commerce raiding".
These are certainly paired down definitions. However, I am fairly certain that no one here wants all the details that I went into last year. Why bring this up?
The US Navy is trying to plan its weapons systems based on the percieved threat. Once that threat is identified, then the question becomes how do we defeat it? The Carrier Strike Group (formerly known as the Carrier Battle Group), with all of its associated escorts, represents, as many people here have noted, a capability to conduct a large scale open wated naval battle. That said, it also has a significant ability to impact the fight ashore. (TACAIR, TLAMs, and Naval Surface Fire Support ).
How do you address the area of combat close to the coast? Dealing with it from the air is a very difficult problem because identifying small vessels as fishing boats or terrorist boats, or small patrol boats is a time consuming process. The operate in water that is shallow enough that the CSG escorts can not get close enough to ID them, and the CSG aircraft, while very capable and limited in number. Having smaller ships that can operate in very shallow water using UAVs adds a significant capability to any naval force.
How does this tie into strategy? A nation's maritime strategy determines how that nation allocates its resources. So, how are we, that is the US, going to allocate our resources? The naval threat today exists predominantly close to the coast. But, if we change our entire industrial base and gear it in that direction, it would still take years for the first of those vessels to appear in the fleet. And what happens with the treat that comes five years from now? If we exeret alll of our resources in that direction, then we will find ourselves grossly unprepared if the future naval threat is a blue water navy.
So, what is the answer? IN MY OPINION (and it is the opinion of one O-4 only), we try to develop a mix that develops the technology to support both areas.
Deisel powered, with up to date radar and radio. Speed would be 30-35k. 
