Warspite as the overall favourite capital ship

Warspite is the culmination of the list because she combines a capable design with unusually long and consequential service. Critical actions in both world wars and the damage she survived built that reputation. Preservation would have been expensive because of her condition, but a partial memorial using four guns, the bridge and part of the superstructure might still have retained more of the ship. Few senior admirals became sustained advocates after the war, when many were exhausted and some died soon afterward. Those difficulties explain the outcome without making Warspite less deserving of preservation.