Well, you're thinking about it from the wrong point of view. It's not intended as the centerpiece of a ASW escort flotilla, like an Invincible, and it's not intended as some sort of command-center-god-king of ship-hunting surface combatants like a Kirov. It's really a ship driven entirely by the introduction of the Tomahawk, and a return of a strategic role that had disappeared with the end of Regulus. AEGIS allows such a ship to operate fully independently in the face of quite significant air forces, and the multitude of hangars on this particular type would most likely be full of ASW helos, making it less vulnerable to a cheap kill by some pokey SSK. Ultimately it's all to leverage the period maritime strategy of applying USN resources to somewhat asymmetric vulnerabilities of the Soviet Union. In this case, it spreads the nuclear wealth over a much wider range of sea. When you consider it as a relatively (!!) inexpensive nuclear delivery platform that could only be decisively countered by a couple of Backfire regiments, whose weapons are a completely different intercept target than a ballistic missile, it makes quite considerable sense.
on this, the question raises.... the other CSGN mk 2 concept showed 2 mk 26. wouldn't that mean that there could be no tomahawks on board?