Oh, sure, it certainly can be done, but as you said it'll be utilitarian. But, hey, if it works, then it works.

I learned long ago, however, that the vast majority of people playing SE want eye candy. A ship or rover or base doesn't have to do anything except look pretty. Lots of greebles and odd shapes...something that has a pleasing look. That's what's popular and will always be popular. I have a large, small-grid mining ship (Deep Reach Miner mk3) that has been grabbed by a lot of people, but most of my designs are generally ignored. Not pretty enough. But that's OK. I build for me and, very occasionally when asked by someone else, something for them where they have specific wants and needs.

Feel free to modify any design I've posted to meet your own needs.

You're absolutely right about how and when to choose a large-grid ship over a small-grid ship. As a final thought, it's hard to design a large-grid mining ship that will fit through a 4-block-high airtight hangar door opening; this is when small-grid ships excel.

I just kicked out Pathfinder III as a replacement for Pathfinder II; Pathfinder II replaced one of the two hydrogen tanks with another large cargo container because I found one was more than adequate for the ship to do its thing. This version, however, works well on high-g planets, although I just tested Pathfinder III and was able to load both large cargo containers, the connector, and the cockpit with 298 tons of cobalt *ingots* and fly to space.

For a long time I was exclusively a big-grid ship builder, seeing small-grid ships as a waste of time. But I discovered that small-grid drills have the same AOE (area of effectiveness) as large-grid drills, so a mining ship is able to mine a tunnel (mine, not clear) when the ship can easily pass inside and that sold me on the usefulness of small-grid ships, especially mining ships. The big benefit to small-grid ships: low-cost (fewer parts). The big negative to small-grid ships: high PCU use. If you want a lot of capacity with low PCU, go large-grid every time.