We never stopped ordering Burkes, but the Burke is an aged design that was not the best to begin with and now has almost no room left over for upgrades. Basically, even a brand new one is the design equivalent of a 1984 Ford Taurus with tons of electronics upgrades that have been duct taped to the interior and exterior. Sure, it’s a brand new 1984 Taurus - but it’s still a 35 year old design.
In recent exercises against the British Type 45 destroyer (when the Type 45 powerplants were working), the Type 45 thoroughly trounced it. In fact, the Type 45s were ordered to deliberately degrade their sensor abilities by half to make it “fair” for the US forces. The Type 45’s construction also means that a shipkiller has a harder time seeing it in the first place, something the Burkes can’t do anything about short of slapping RAM coatings and exhaust diffusers on as not-terribly-effective bandaids.
Sure, we can make more naval 1984 Tauruses for now, but we really need to get something better in the pipeline.
As you’ve already said, the Type 45 destroyer is already vastly superior in its specialist role than the Burke class, the only major issue is the engine, which is currently being rectified as the ships come into port for maintainance.
It should be remembered that at the time these ships were designed, it was expected they would normally be operated in the colder waters of the Northe Atlantic/South Atlantic, and the problem stems from the fact that the design that was geared towards toning down the thermal signature also causes overheating, which isn’t so much of an issue in the cooler waters it was assumed it would be operating in. Now that naval architects know better about how geopolitics has developed in recent years and that the Type 26 will be operating in warmer equatorial climates, this will be accounted for before the ships are sent for testing. The QEC hasn’t reported any problems when being tested in carribean waters during recent trials, so it isn’t likely to be a problem with the MT30 that will be powering both ships.