I agree with all your comments. The crew management in sh3/4 reflected the factors you had to take into acount to have a crew at peak efficiency. On the other hand, you had to do too much micro-management of your crew.
I like the approach of SH5 to limit your interaction to officers/senior officers, but the rest of the system needs to be reworked, so that the effect is more similar to sh3/4.
There should never be a situation where your crew refuses an order, although their efficiency could go down if their morale is poor.
They could lose morale if they are tired, too long at battle stations, panicked, etc. They could regain morale if you rest them, sink ships, be awarded decorations (?).
The skills would have to be reworked to be more like the promotions in SH3/4, which made more sense.
In effect, you should have a system where you get the result of sh3/4 crew managemnt, without the micro-management.
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