It depends
Hello,
And first, congratulations on being involved in what sounds like a lovely project. Your assumptions aren't exactly correct, but they are worth looking at. Strength, at least as measured on a testing machine, will be about the same for a splice or a swage IF both are done optimally well (also true for proper seizings, and poured sockets). Long-term fatigue resistance might give the nod to the splice, but only where fatigue loads are severe. The one place where such is liable to be the case is for the swages that form soft eyes, at the tops of the wires. Here there can be significant lateral loads, and swages will tend to break the wires there. If you make the eyes longer to relieve this, you can get a sloppy fit, with too much rig motion from tack to tack. If you have lugs or tangs aloft, this isn't an issue, as the lead on a thimble is kinder. It is also difficult to seal swaged wire with service, but that is a separate matter.
If the Coast Guard person's suggestion wasn't about structure, then they would have had a really good argument based just on aesthetics. Swaged schooner rig looks a bit, um, agricultural, and even uneducated passengers are likely to notice this.
Most bulldog clips, by the way, weaken wire significantly, look even worse than swages, and love to snag things.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss
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