I think this suggestion has come down to this:... I want to play Football with an oblong ball...... you want to play Football but with a round ball.
By the way...my Football is better..... 
What's strange is that what you describe as your ideal of a PDC is far better modeled by C#'s ground forces than it ever was VB6's PDCs.
For example, in C#, you can have:
DHQ North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD), a fortified headquarters complex dug into Cheyenne Mountain, the centerpiece of an elaborate orbital defense network
with attachments
3rd Orbital Defense Brigade, a series of enormous lasers buried deep beneath classified locations in the Rocky Mountains, using concealed firing shutters.
56th, 57th, and 58th Garrison Regiments, each consisting of innumerable pillboxes, hidden heavy weapons, and anti-air emplacements
22nd Area Defense Regiment, a supporting formation of heavy anti-air weaponry and emplaced artillery
And the way that actually plays out in the game is as a well defended and dug in deterrent to any assault whether via ground or space, since the STO weapons are hidden
Whereas in VB6 you have an easily-identified immobile ship called NORAD which will inevitably be nuked out of existence or obliterated easily by meson fire. In no gameplay sense does it resemble, for example, the PDCs visualized in the Starfire book
Crusade.
