On the Harpoon board where I lurk and post, there are some who call the LCS the “Little Crappy Ship”. The price of a cruiser, the size of a frigate, the capabilities of a small corvette. Most of the flak that the LCS gets is due to the extreme cost overruns in the program. This was supposed to be based on an existing commercially available trimaran ferry design. Just what kind of gold plating took place here?
As for capabilities, I would compare this more with the APD instead of the WWII DE. The DE was more of an anti-submarine convoy escort. The LCS is more designed for delivery of small combat teams, either by helicopter or small boat. There are other derivitive designs (concept form) for ASW or anti surface missions.
I know people who worked on one of the LCS designs and they tell me that the navy said "make it a commercial design" and then after the award came in and said "but make it meet these new rules for high speed naval craft" which required everything to be done completely differently, even the welding had to be all redone. There's your gold plating.