A treaty-free navy still needs a middle cruiser

Without the naval treaties, would battlecruisers disappear while cruisers evolved into a new middle category?

Battlecruisers would remain alongside heavy and light cruiser forms because the growing capital ships could no longer perform the worldwide armoured-cruiser mission economically.

Removing the treaties does not remove the need for ships between destroyers and capital ships. Battlecruisers would grow too large and costly to cover every distant-station and large-cruiser task. Navies would therefore develop another middle type as the older armoured cruisers disappeared. The labels might differ from the treaty categories, but the underlying split would emerge from geography, cost, and mission.