[FT] I'm in love with Pulse Torpedoes (and tactics question)

Had a quick FT game last night, with the original aim of trying a
fighter-heavy fleet against a PDS- and pulse-heavy one. My opponent 
chose NAC: Ark Royal, Majestic, Vandenburg/T, Huron, Ticonderoga, 
Tacoma/T. I wanted to try pulse torpedoes, grepped my ship list, and 
ended up with John's NR designs: a St George carrier, a St Theodore the 
Recruit HKDN, two Cimbalongus/E DDEs and a Thessalonika CL (the latter 
being the only relatively conventional design of that group).

Two things worked surprisingly well with that NR fleet, which is why I'm
writing this message of congratulations to John.

(1) Having 8 pulse torpedoes pointed at you has a wonderful
psychological effect. Having 8 pulse torpedoes fired at you can take out
a Vandenburg/T, Ticoderoga or Tacoma/T in one volley (all of which
happened). Small ships should not play with the big boys.

(2) Having the pair of Cimbalongus/Es in close formation with the St
Theodore the Recruit made it practically invulnerable to SM and fighter
attack.

As a general tactics question, how do people usually use light escort
ships? I've found that, when fleets start far apart, they generally get
taken out by long-range beam fire before they can get around the enemy
for stern shots; the only reason the Cimbalongus/Es survived this time
was that St Theodore the Recruit became a priority target (and took a
long time to whittle down to the first threshold point... at which it
lost one torp tube, which was immediately repaired).

If escort ships are kept close to the things they're escorting, then
they don't need such big drives; but I haven't seen designs for
low-thrust small ships.

So how do other people deploy them?