Ship design component sizes extremely buggy

Playing GalCivII Ultimate, no mods or unusual tweaks...

I have the auto-design option on, but often feel like tweaking an existing design. But when I do so, the component size calculations get very, very screwy. Most frequently, the "base" design (that the game auto-designed for me) is carrying more components than are actually accounted for. That is, if I start the design from scratch using identical components, I'll end up oversize. Moreover, the displayed sizes on screen are completely wacky - the left-hand menu listings and the mouseover text from the icons on top don't agree on the size of components, nor do either necessarily match what the ship designer appears to be counting. Often, I can flip to a different section in the left-hand menu and then back to where I started and the listed size will change (though still not always matching the top icon text).

I searched quite a bit on this, but only found one other user who mentioned it. I find this really, really weird, since it sure doesn't look like a machine-specific bug to me and it can make a considerable difference in what fits on a ship. Am I missing something here? Are auto-designs supposed to be magically more efficient than hand-designed ships? The rest I can shrug off as mere graphical glitches, but the magically efficient auto-designs seem like a pretty severe bug.

Also, why is it that using a ship template gives you a ship with no functional components, or am I missing an interface option somewhere? Is the point of templates supposed to be purely graphical? The text descriptions on the templates describe the ships as "designed for missile weapons" and similar, but those seem to be completely useless since all you get is the hull and some cosmetic extras.