Problem with this argument is that it argues US could have not been involved in ME, which I don't see a way to make that happen. We've been heavily involved since the 80s; we're not going away.
Actually another problem with it is to imply it's binary (ie we could have either bought the full line of ZUMWALTs or gone into the ME). We could realistically have done both (though in fairness there are political realities to defense spending that make it zero sum; it's a better argument domestically, where I point out to people that we in fact did spend trillions going into the ME and we spent trillions on health care/education/social welfare/whatever of those three their pet project was).
But in returning back to original question about the ZUMWALT, I can't claim to speak for all the 1110s (especially since I'm an 1115 now), but I don't know many who are like, "Oh man, we're losing so much by not having so many more of them!" Other than the supposed NSFS mission, no one seems to know what we want to use them for, and while NSFS might be a USMC requirement, so is a 38-ship amphib fleet, and we ignore that requirement so openly as to be close to mocking it. Or the strike mission of "17,000 ton 'stealth destroyer' in the littorals", which looks dumb even on powerpoint slide, and probably still isn't as good as that as other platforms.
So, again, what exactly is it that the ZUMies do? We go back to "Giant Leap Forward!...if it works". So it's a R&D test platform. I'm cool with two or three ships as an R&D test platform if they don't work. That's a lot less risk than a 32-ship class that may not work.
What follows on from DDG 1000 will be pretty cool, I hope (eg Future Surface Combatant). But that doesn't mean DDG 1000 itself will be cool/useful.
