I guess it would make delaying naval production more feasible. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. But without some kind of range upgrade, it doesn't help a lot.
Navy gameplay has ~two~ three problems in my opinion:
- Early raids on naval production can be devastating, or can be a massive waste. More generally, once naval production is destroyed the navy game is usually permanently won/lost.
- On quite a few navy maps, there isn't a lot of raiding possible with T1 navy.
- Navy-vs-air and navy-vs-land balance is weird, but these are different topics.
Combined together, these make the choice of how much to eco before getting navy production started a big gamble (depending heavily on the map). For land this is usually less true since there are more options for doing eco damage via raids and the ACU can defend production better.
Giving ACUs more power vs T1 navy would probably help with this significantly, though maps still play a big role (distance, raiding opportunities, beaches giving access to the water).