There are, realistically, two basic conflicts that we could get into, one where we have naval and air supremacy and one where we don't. In the world where we have basically no real threat to our naval assets then go big and don't worry about the armor. In fact, just take a bunch of super tankers and throw on as many VLS modules on them as you can. Done. This ship isn't that, as the article points out. In the other war, one where we don't own the sea, then the idea of armor is basically silly and your best defenses are numbers and size. The littoral has grown far beyond line of sight and is arguably the entire world at this point given satellites and the reach of modern weapons. In that world you want a lot, so you can loose them, and you want them small, so that a loss isn't a big deal. This ship isn't that either. It reminds me of the Homer[1]. If your entire goal is to show up in port looking good then maybe, but I doubt this ship is good at that either. The first step to looking good in port is is just showing up so smaller ships doing more port visits probably gets that job done far better. But I am a fan of an inefficient military. It is hard to fight if you have terrible weapons so go ahead! Build a terrible ship and spend a lot of money doing it!

[1]: https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer