Fanatik, whilst what you say is true, bigger surface ships (though not as big as Kirovs) are now becoming popular again at least in Asia.
Zumwalt (USA) – 15,742 tons
Type 055 (PRC) – 12,000-13,000 tons
Sejong the Great (South Korea) – 8,500 – 11,000 tons
Maya class (Japan) – 10,500 tons
Atago class (Japan) – 10,000
Frigates are growing too – from 1500-4000 tons previously to 8,000+ tons.
The interesting thing is there's not much expansion of lethality – most western ships still use the Harpoon in limited numbers (often a mere 8) with huge amounts of VLS dedicated to defensive SAMs.
A large western destroyer/frigate of 9000 ton displacement might pack 8 Harpoons/Exocets whilst a small Chinese or Russian corvette of 1500 tons of less will pack 4!
The Western ones pack a lot of sensors and electronics so have better C3 and ISTAR capabilities but note that in small, narrow seas like the Baltic or Black or Chinese seas, these won't necessarily give much advantage.
they are too vulnerable in today's threat environment.
What's fascinating is that navies are investing lots of money in even more vulnerable LHD/LHAs that need to suck up a huge amount of surface ships as escorts. Most of these don't carry fighters, only helicopters.
Eg the Australian Canberra class LHD which is "defended" by a mere four 25mm cannons (though one will be replaced by CIWS).
And given Australia's entire surface combat fleet is 11 ships and is scheduled to grow to 12, just one of those LHDs will need about a quarter of them as escorts (and from an operational perspective that's probably a third or even half the deployable fleet).