Ya, they are giving a lot of mixed signals on this.
In the most recent
IAE they talked about the fact that the Merchantman currently has a skeleton team working on the exterior the interior is white-boxed. But they said they are at a crossroads where they need to decide if it gets shelved or not. I think it's getting shelved and the increased attention to the tease is just marketing knowing it's an attention-grabbing ship shape and using it in their material.
I am not sure its so much got lazy as it is the other teams have not created all the weapons yet in game and we are just seeing the disconnect between what is currently available and what is in the design doc.
And you are right in that this ship currently has no direct real direct competition as of this moment due to its size.
This is a big concern and the other part is it will only be able to be modified at a large enough ship yard. Its the same thing they hinted at back years ago with some of the larger ship parts and weapons. In that you can transport them but to modify them will require the services of a ship yard and can't be done in the field. I wish we would get more information on how they expect the game loop on changing out these mods and transporting them will work.