The reason they didn't do that is because it would lead to the level 4 abilities being too powerful in most cases, and it would increase the gap further between good abilities and bad one. The Progenitor would heal 75 shields per second for example, while the Antorak's subversion is not going to be much better than it was at level 3.

That said I agree the particular numbers they picked are pretty funky.

I would rather have kept the old level system, but have lvl 4 add some completely new affect to the power. Then, you would have the choice after maxing it out to add this new affect or use the points for something else.

For example (Sorry, I play advent so these are the random specific examples that jumps to mind): Radiance's lvl 4 absorption armor gains damage reduction. Malace lvl 4 reduces effectiveness of repair abilities on affected ships for duration of ability. Clairvoyance increases ship build times on affected planets for duration.

This would be cool because it takes a long time before you get any of these affects and it's like a reward... something new and different along the lines of what you already have.... but then it's not giving you more of what you already have either, (ie lvl 4 absorbtion armor wouldnt add another armor point or increase the AM received, it would just add the new affect to make it better). So, depending on the situation and what you think are good affects, you might get an ability to lvl 3 and not take lvl 4 or push something to lvl 4 when lvls 1-3 sucked...

Well I understand what lich1989 meant. If you level a capship like you did in diplomacy to 3/3/3/1 it is weaker than it was  before the change, which isn't that nice actually. If you level the skills to 4 they are slightly stronger than before, but with going to 4/4/0/2 you will lose a whole skill on the ship.

So I'm really inclined to say, I liked the old system alot better. I have to get 2 caps for most types, to have every skill on a level where it's as useful as it was before.

So why were capships nerfed? ^^

As had been said already they wanted not all level 10 capitalships to be identical.  The reduction of earlier ranks of the skills was to prevent power creep.  Let's face it, not all abilities are created equal, and a whole new rank an increment higher then the trinity level 3 values to all of your capitalship's important abilities(rather then blowing the point in the inevitable cruddy ability many cap ships have).

In essence they were trying to balance that one extra point of an important ability against the 1 point being removed from a cruddy ability. The result: the relative benefit of the 4th point as compared to trinity needs to be smaller then the early ranks.  After that it was just a matter of creating a proper uniform progression, which resulted in lower rank 1-3 values.

Point is capitalships at higher levels are probably still a bit more powerful then before, but the powercreep was kept to a reasonable level.

honestly I think it was the right move- if certain ships lag behind because of a reduced mid-game, they can be addressed on a per-case basis.

no... that's like... the whole reason there's now extra ability levels.

lvl 10 ships are rare anyhow...