I think Joshua's problem is that he thinks Wing Commander is Star Adventure 4010, or whatever (what the hell is Star Adventure 4010, and do I really care?). By his reasoning, one should wonder why Confed didn't use warp drive, phasers, and photon torpedos, since they used them in Star Trek, or hyperdrives, superlasers, and proto torpedos, since they used them in Star Wars. Or why they didn't build a Death Star so they could blow up planets (err, wait...).
Let's see if I can come up with some more ideas: gee, wouldn't it be great if Confed had masses of robot fighters to attack the enemy? That way, Confed wouldn't have to worry about training pilots. Hey, wouldn't it be great if Confed could invent engines that went 10x as fast? Wouldn't it be great if Confed had missile ships that could fire out 5000 missiles at an enemy target? Wouldn't it be great if Confed carriers had on-board factories that could pump out fighters out of asteroids? Wouldn't it be great if there was a missile which traveled at the speed of light and blew up any capital ship with one hit?
Yeah, and wouldn't it be great if I had a special butto n combination which would cause all the Kilrathi on my screen to blow up simultaneously.