>>3406994Most ships outside of the commons are pretty useful in different circumstances. They aren't all useful in late game stages, but if you value your oil then you won't be running those too much and, from my experience anyway, once you get then two healer light carriers you can run pretty much whoever you want up until chapter 10 with few issues so long as you've been leveling your gear.
As for ship designs, they have a bit more variety in outfits and ethnicity within a given class than KanColle, but their rigs are as similar as their real-life versions were. Not focusing on a single nation's ships does give them a degree of freedom in who they include as well, allowing them to pick and choose significant ships instead of including every ship from a given class.