I have never really understood why so many modellers don't think they have the skill necessary to build miniatures. When I first saw some of the famous Donald McNarry miniature ships in 1968, I thought they were amazing and wondered how he did them. I made it my business to find out and changed from 8'=1" to 32'=1" literally overnight. From day one, I found them cheaper, easier and more convenient to build (I was at sea at the time).
Even leaving model building aside, there is almost zero interest in iron and steel square-riggers!
The rigging of such miniatures, using the wire method described above, is really simple, but repetitive. I have no fiddly knots to deal with. The copper wire ratlines are just wound on a frame and the shrouds soldered across them. To make a set for one mast takes about 3/4 of an hour. That is lower, topmast and t'gallant mast shrouds & ratlines. The PRIMROSE HILL has about 800 soldered joints in the ratlines on all four masts, but the whole lot only took about three hours, split into three sessions.
Bob