I'd imagine that OOU, the reason for that was practicality. The Osteon's signature design elements require a steep investment in tonnage and critical spaces, an investment no variant of the Aries can actually afford to pay. Most of them are already trading away heat sinks for more weapons and ammo, they really can't afford.
Speak of Aries, I decided to buy a few. Namely the M, L, and H. Might have gotten a prime, but they're out of stock.
The M is basically a super-Osteon, carrying the same weapon configuration but upgrading to iATM 12s rather than 9s, plus twin pulse lasers and a targetting computer. I'm not totally sold on the base config, and not just because it's got a ton of ATM ammo in the head (which is, granted, still bad, but you can burn through that in a few rounds of fire so it should be safe). It only mounts 15 DHS, which is not enough to use the missiles and lasers simultaneously. And given the sheer damage that can come from peppering someone with the long ranged ATM missiles and closing in, punching some holes in the damaged armor with the lasers and then following up with HE(or maybe worse, improved Inferno)....that sound like a big deal to me. I'm thinking of ripping out the computer and downgrading to ER lasers, and using the savings for more sinks and C3i.
The L, on the other hand, is something I've been trying to get working for a while, a quad ER large laser build. One of the first mechs I bought was a mad cat mkII 4, but I've never been happy with it, or rather with its inability to make use of its full firepower without serious heat issues. The Aries L still falls short of that, since it's twin HAGs take up too much tonnage to fit enough sinks for the lasers. However, it comes close. And by stripped out the mechs supercharger and the 5th ER laser it carries, it frees up enough space for both C3i and a radical heat sink, which will allow for at least intermittent alpha strikes.
And then there's the H, which is simply one of meanest designs I've seen. A mech with a headcapper typical commands a great deal of fear and respect, though not as much as the increasing number of models that mount two such weapons. The handful that mount more than that have become legendary for doing so, particularly those that use (some might say "abuse") clan tech in order to do so while dodging the more severe tradeoffs that comparable IS mechs have to make.
The Aries H mounts 6, and enough heat sinks to fire 5 of them on any given turn with only mild heat build up, or 4 of them indefinitely. I think it's one of the few cases where cramming C3i into it has made the mech worse, since it required dropping heat sinks in order to free up the weight, cuts that meant it can't fire more than 4 guns without significant heat issues. In either case it's a very mean design, essentially a clan tech devistator. It does have at least one weak point, namely the fact that all four of the guns in the side torsos explode when damaged, and the design lacks the CASE II which would mitigate the worst of the damage, a set of design flaws that I suspect are intentional one the part of the design team.
Speaking of Aries (both the mech and the company), they apparently had a issue with their original supplier destroying the master molds of the Aries mech and had to change manufacturers, so there will likely be a delay in restocking the store. Also, the order confirmation email I received mentioned that they have 5 new custom mechs in production that will be unveiled in the next few weeks. Vague on details, aside from that there's one from each weight class, save heavy which gets two.
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