Lunar shipyards? What Lunar shipyards? I managed to teleport myself to the WC universe and tried looking at the moon, but all I saw was one big smoking hole in the ground
I do think CVEs exist after the Kilrathi War, the Shrike and Panther's bio refers to them existing.
As for the Kilrathi War was concerned, I think the CVLs (light carriers) and CVEs (escort carriers) had the same wartime role. Only the CVLs were shitboxes built over 50 years back that were pulled from mothballs, while the CVEs were just recently built-half-assed contractions.
During End Run, the Tarawa and her sisters were frequently referred to as light carriers, and the Victory was referred to as an escort carrier. Even the Victory Streak's Recon-In-Force groups, the raider missions that just screams "escort carrier!", the main component was a light carrier. So the point is, CVEs and CVLs are different classes of warships with nearly the same wartime roles.
So . . . why didn't they bring back the Ranger-class carriers in service when they could have brought in CVEs in 2667? Simple, the CVEs were more effective. The CVEs were faster and had more fighters, plus cheaper to build. The Ranger-class warships were . . . the crappiest of the crap. They weren't fast and they couldn't carry as many fighters as the newest CVEs in spite of their 720 meter size (remember that they were built before the Kilrathi War, and only to hold scout fighters then, not a multi-purpose air wing). The Victory was last on the list for recieving new equipment, which means logically that every other carrier had more priority.
As for the Eagle-type CVEs being larger then the Victory, that may be true, but size doesn't always mean length (even though it would be around it's range in length). It can have more tonnage for example. But that doesn't mean it's going to be as big as say, a corvette. Also, this might sound unorthodox, but there might be a good reason why they made the Eagles as long as they were. It could be a good attempt by Confed to make the CVEs bigger then they normally appear, to sucker the Kats into thinking it's a new class of light or medium carrier. Intelligence is all about fooling the enemy in every way possible, and this theory is something that just screams of military cunning.
And my last topic and something that may be open to debate. . . I think CVEs got their asses kicked after the Battle of Eath. Admiral Hancock was, quoted by the Armada manual, as the guy who was the unofficial leader of the behind-the-lines strikes. Armada had the Lexington deploy after the Battle of Earth. The Armada manual also referred to six Salthis torping a Confederation carrier (besides the Lexington, Confed would be hard pressed to deploy another of their precious fleet carriers behind enemy lines). False Colors said Bonderevsky gave up the Tarawa to take command of DesRon-67, and heard Tarawa was crippled in a clash with the Kats. This might mean the CVEs were once again, being deployed in behind the lines raids. But this time . . . they were stopped cold (most likely by the Kats reserve carriers and their new light carriers). And as the WC3 manual had said, many Recon-In-Force groups never came back.