Seanahue

I'm a little confused about how new ships become available in the Build Ship window. In particular, I have researched Titanium Armor, and yet none of the ships available in the Build Ship window have a Defense above 0. I noticed that if I create a custom ship I can put titanium armor on it, but shouldn't there standard ships available with titanium armor on them now? Or at least the option to add it? For example, there is a FIghter available to buy, which has a Beam Weapon 1 but Defense 0,