Well, from a programming point of view, changing things in the .cfg, .ini, .whatever files has been known to cause program crashes when the program was never designed to handle more than some finite number of objects (ask Fred about what GIEP does when you put too many girls in the Captain'sGirls folder
).
I don't think it was unreasonable of the developers to only work with a finite number of torpedos. If they expected the game to be a "shoot 'em up" there would be an option for unlimited nuclear-tipped, laser guided, instant loading torpedos. Fortunately, there is no such option. Don't get me wrong, I'm no rivet-counter, but there are limits on the fantasy aspect of the game.