Follow up to the Royal Fleet question: Would you characterize the 200+ ship royal fleet under Stannis as being exceptionally well-maintained and centralized then, or do you think that most of that is holdovers from the build-up following the War of the Usurper and Greyjoy’s Rebellion?

More the latter.

Consider that the Royal Fleet was destroyed in that big storm when Dany was born and Stannis had to build a new one. That highly unusual circumstance meant that, for once, the royal fleet would not be a patchwork but rather a unified cohort of ships with the same longevity, which would be running out around the start of the ASOIAF timeline. This provides unusual opportunities to maintain a steady number of ships through rationalized maintenance and repair schedules and other procedures. 

Now, an open question is to what extent the Greyjoy Rebellion offered an opportunity to overhaul the Royal Fleet – after all, the ships would be about halfway through their normal lifespan and here you have a war where naval power is absolutely necessary; likewise, the voyage around Westeros to link up with the Redwynes, the subsequent Battle of Fair Isle, and the various amphibious landings that followed it would put a good deal of wear-and-tear on the fleet. So it’s possible that the Royal Fleet got a refresh before or after the Greyjoy Rebellion. 

All of that Watsonian explanation aside, I think GRRM doesn’t want the headache of tracking ship counts over time – he’s trying to tell a story, and it’s not a Patrick O’Brien story where that kind of nautical pedantry sells.