Ves' mentality towards the expert candidates and expert pilots had changed over the years.
The Larkinson Clan was no longer awfully deficient in high-end combat power.
Sure, the Larkinson Army was still far away from obtaining an ace pilot let alone a high-tier expert pilot, but it wasn't easy to fill up these gaps in the short and medium term.
Though most of the Larkinson expert pilots were still young and fairly early in their careers, the clan was able to provide them with the equivalent combat power of a mid-tier expert pilot by providing with much more powerful expert mechs than normal.
Ves simply overcame the weakness of one by cranking up the strength of the other in order to shore up his high-end combat power.
The overall results they attained in this battle largely vindicated his strategy. Pretty much every Larkinson expert pilot overperformed compared to their peers in the Sundered Phalanx.