>>96890482
>we're supposed to believe that in 250 years of succession wars no one did these basic swaps?

Look man, I don't fuck with my classic car for certain things because I can't get replacements, and it was made in the tens of thousands less than 60 years ago. You look at a mech that was made in the hundreds with no parts for centuries and see how willing people would be to fuck with it.

Battletech people don't mess with their mechs too much unless they're story protags or gladiators or a top tier noble. Now, the actual rules are a little easier than that but as we know, rules are an abstraction. 99% of people do not fuck with their mechs because of all the shit that can go wrong. So yeah, a bunch of variants for a super rare machine makes no sense.