T. A. Gardner
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With Britain in the WW 1 and 2 era, their major concern wasn't so much being the best as it was being present. For the Royal Navy, the #1 mission was defending commerce in a guerre de course of commerce raiding. Britain had a worldwide empire to run and shipping was the means to make commerce and the economy work. Defending that shipping was the top priority.A warship's job is to be lethal to the enemy. Repeatedly coming off as second best against enemy ships of similar size, age, and expense means there is a problem, a problem that cannot be explained away. Battlecruisers designed and built in Germany shrugged off the single torpedo hits and handful of heavy shells that for British battlecruisers would be crippling, or worse.
Yes, Britain needed a large battle fleet too if they were to engage in a war with another naval power like say, Japan or the US. But against all of their most likely opponents, defending merchant ships at sea and hunting down raiders was going to be job #1.
This meant they needed large numbers of cruiser-type ships that could successfully take on a merchant raider, and by the end of WW 1 escort ships that could defend convoys and hunt down submarines.
With the WNT, Britain at first tried to build expensive 8" cruisers. These were seen as a necessity for use on the Asia stations where they'd be facing similarly armed IJN cruisers. But these were too expensive and consumed too much weight to build in quantity. Thus, the RN reverted to 6" cruisers that were smaller and far more austere. Keeping as many older cruisers as possible, however marginal, in service was equally important for their numbers. They didn't have to be capable of fighting in a fleet action so much as being able to fight and win against a single armed merchant raider.
You have to keep that perspective for British cruiser construction in the interwar years. The same goes for destroyers where numbers were considered far more important than having top notch quality ones in terms of their fitting.