ABMs - they're not all that...

Agree. When GF made this, they were definitely not thinking that players wouldn't get past 10 or 100 million points. Because they are indeed only good for "begginers".
When you reach a certain size, yes, they are pretty much pointless, and since there doesn't exist any bashing towards defence with IPMs, something could be done about it. How about making each level of missile silo double the amount of ABMs with the first level giving 10 ABMs, thus 2nd giving 20, 3rd giving 40... etc, etc.
While each level of missile silo should only give 10 IPMs per level. By level 10 you would have 5120 ABMS, which quite frankly, by old universe standarts, it's not all that much and you will have to waste 10 slots for it, but at the same time, it is quite a lot more effort that the basher would need to wipe out a defence while the defender is offline and it will make him think of the resources he will need to waste as well. As it is, anytime someone is offline, an ACS of IPMs can get the job done with absolute ease, only 100IPMs wasted on 100ABMs is pretty much nothing to consider, or unless the defender has a gigantic turtle.

Yea, as a player with a preference for turtle and mining, I've always felt the same. I do however highly doubt that it will change, unless of course a universe with those settings should arrive, but that might just also make that uni fairly dull.

Truth be told, the most anyone would do, for a PROPPER hit, would be IPM'ing your defence to get back at your Deathstars or any fleet you have that you regularly fleetsave(or if you are "dumb" leave it stationary behind defence)...

But, there's always that basher noob, or that multi account guy that doesn't care about resources and decides to lay waste on your defence and the only option you will have is... to vmode.