Hypothetical:
If we assume that your proposing a design (or several designs) from a clean sheet for purchase by a major house, in the likely foolish hope that you can sell -a lot- of them, and we want to focus on survivability (intended doctrine is to use mech forces mobility and resilience to fix enemy formations for destruction by flanking attack, artillery, airpower, or some combination thereof)...
What does a 3150 or later designer propose? Lets go crazy for a moment, assume that the board is green for tech of any type or any source -
Bipeds? Classic. Roomy. The default for a hundred good reasons. Osteon is a great example of what can be done here.
Quads? Does the Turtle lead the way? Space is sooo cramped, but hull down/partial cover quads with maybe some smoke to cover them as they leapfrog back or forward from one firing position to another could be very hard to shift. Again though - space.
Tripods? Seem to be almost too good, but -having- arms reduced the value of partial cover, and ‘one MP to 360 facing’ coupled with the turret like behavior of the torso is a lot of utility for a small tonnage cost, it seems.
Superheavies? No special muscles or structure or gyros or a lot of neat special tricks. But good god the available volume. Maybe in combination with quads to relieve the space burden? Biped or Triped models toting the Long Toms around?
While we are at it, where do we put our Artillery, and what type? The easy answer is ‘yes’ and ‘all of it’, but... vehicles/superheavt mechs with heavy pieces for range? Lighter more mobile units with Arrow IV? Arty or Arty Cannons as a major design element? On-board Arrow IV isnt a terrible main gun, and the idea of having all the forces across a multi-hexmap front being able to directly support whichever unit is in contact is tasty - but ammunition consumption would be ruinous...
To further muddle the issue - how much value is there in, logistically, in standardization? Can we get away with 5 different weapons max? Or less? At what cost? Can we look at standardizing armor types and engines? The 300 (or 300XL) can be a prime mover for a whole host of weight classes with reasonable jobs and speed. Or 375 XLs for a 3/5 Super Heavy Assault and a 5/8 ‘Modern’ Heavy Main Battle Tank Equivalent...
Thoughts?