The principle of concentrated fire has been around for a long time, possibly ever since people starting throwing rocks, and to my understanding, generally been considered a necessary tactical consideration.  I taught it to my kids during squirt gun fights.  Then I taught them that a garden hose beats squirt guns.    They taught those lessons to their friends in turn.  I can't see needing a technological advance to enable something like that.

I understand the desire for a variety of sorts in the battle viewer, but it is hard for me to see it as appropriate for what is essentially squad size fleets and therefore use squad tactics as opposed to big front lines all shooting at each other.

I do the same thing sometimes. If I was a fleet commander, and your flagship was behind your cruisers with a range of 25-72 miles on my guns I would shoot over your cruisers to hit your carrier, especially consider that you have about 45 f19s escorting 15 f14 tomcats would be more dangerous than a cruiser.