politics

They would have way more parts, fail more catastrophically

This remains to be seen. In fact, the opposite is proving true.

https://maritime-executive.com/article/report-carrier-uss-ford-s-electromagnetic-systems-still-need-work

USS Ford's launch and recovery gear are electromagnetically actuated, a departure from the steam-operated Nimitz-class carriers. The new designs were developed and installed because they promised longer intervals between maintenance and higher sortie generation rates. Though the Navy remains upbeat about Ford's capabilities, these gains have proven elusive. "The reliability of CVN 78 catapults, arresting gear, and jet blast deflectors (JBDs) continues to have an adverse effect on sortie generation and flight operations efficiency," noted DOT&E in an annual report released in mid-January. "The ongoing reliability problems with these critical subsystems remains the primary risk to the successful completion of CVN 78 [initial operational testing and evaluation]."

The carrier's Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) has similar challenges. The AAG is supposed to cycle 16,500 times between failures, but in recent testing it has broken down after roughly 450 cycles.

Belowdecks, the Ford's Advanced Weapons Elevator (AWE) elevator system remains a source of trouble. During a weapons onload in September, the lower stage elevators performed more quickly than those on a Nimitz-class carrier, DOT&E said; however, 109 elevator failures were reported out of about 20,000 elevator dispatches. "AWE system reliability will be critical as the Navy develops standard procedures for moving ordnance from magazines to the flight deck," noted DOT&E.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/craighooper/2022/10/14/in-a-first-deployment-test-uss-ford-fails-to-beat-nimitz-class-benchmarks/

In a first ordnance-handling test, the advanced weapons elevators on the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), America’s new, $13.3 billion supercarrier, offered little to no meaningful improvement over the legacy elevator systems aboard America’s venerable $5 billion Nimitz class carriers.

Crew claimed they “were able to run ammo downstairs in the magazines much quicker because we were able to put extra weight on the elevator, able to run it down quicker, which means you have to run those cycles a lot less.” That sounds great, but unbiased analysis of the Ford’s performance during the carrier’s initial two-and-a-half day ammunition onload cycle suggests the Navy has yet to take full advantage of Ford’s eleven faster and stronger elevators. Put bluntly, all the high-tech electromagnetic elevators aboard the USS Ford failed to translate into a faster ordnance onload cycle. It calls a primary pillar of the Ford’s business case—that new ammunition handling techniques would yield vast performance benefits and make the ship less vulnerable—into question.