Large destroyers instead of light cruisers

In 1971, a friend of mine decided to follow Admiral Fisher's ideas about ship types. His initial building program consisted of fast battleships of 24 knots and 6-12in guns and 12-inch side armor. His cruisers were the 32 knot light battlecruisers with 4-12inch guns and 4-inch side armor. His next largest ships were destroyer leader types, where some had torpedoe tubes and some did not. They all were lightly armed with 88mm guns (my friend figured if the 88 was good enough for Rommel, it was good enough for his ships). The gun armed ships were large gunboats while the torpedo and gun armed ships were destroyer leaders. The smaller destroyer types were all armed with 88mm guns, some with and some without torpedoes. Those armed with guns, only, were fast gunboats, while those with guns and torpedoes were destroyers. All ships were as fast as possible. The large destroyer types could make 35 knots while the smaller destroyer types could make 32 knots.