There's also the possibility of exotic changes to the design paradigm, like a seperation between an emitter and a weapon system for some weapon types (with only the emitters being exposed.)
My first thought was, Ohh hell no! Way too much micro... But this is actually a very interesting idea in it self. For example, currently when design CIWS, the summary field gives us a breakdown of its sub-components:
Dual GC: 5HS Turret: 1.87 HS Fire Control: .16 HS Sensor .03 HS ECCM: .5
Overall Size: 7.6 HTK: 2
As far as the game goes, those has zero implication, the CIWS behave like any other non-electronic component i.e. it has total size and HTK. But what if those sub-components actually exist?
Player wise, it would be designed the same i.e. no added micro-management) Technically, after some balance, it wold work the same, just using a bigger DAC table. And it could offer interesting way to expand, for example you could assigning properties to each component. Designing the Weapon mount as Turret and External; the FC and Sensors as Electronic. This way we could use HPMs to disable specific guns ( avoiding the all or nothing hunt for the FC ) and by not actually destroying them completely the enemy fleet can still regroup and recover, making combat more dynamic.
With such extension we can separate Capacitors from Energy weapons, internal magazines from Missile Racks... But not just weapons, many background-tech we commonly select during Component design can be represented as a sub-system linked to a specific game function e.g. Engines, thermal reduction = Heat Sinks, reduce the Thermal Signature emitted by the component. If hit you can still move but have bigger bulls-eye on your ass.
Basically something like that can be used, to broaden the target list, expand the list of effects from electronic\explosive and can make damage events that much more interesting to read and RolePlay.