What, by having everything that is currently not standard except for the ICE become a standard, the difference between engines would be minimal. The energy recovery and position of the turbo is in large part the main reasons the Merc engine is good, if the turbo were standard, it would have to fit all engines in the same place, thus all engines would have roughly the same design. Freezing everything so it has to work the same except ICE doesn't mean freezing the ICE... what minimal differences were happening with the ICE could be fixed over time but again they'd be marginal.
The only way for a turbo/energy parts to fit a Merc and Renault would be if both had say a split turbo with the turbo out front.
It would also reduce costs a lot if all three engines weren't developing those parts and if the ICE was pretty easy to get right and would take minimal improvements(because there would be minimal improvements to make) for several years.
Most of the idea's about engines are both to make sure RBR don't have any performance difference and for cost reasons to a degree.
As for energy recovery, better to have a reliable and higher power energy recovery system(or at least if it sucks it would suck for everyone) than have a slower car with better packaging.
If you presume the RBR had the best packaging and best aero by a decent margin(not convinced of that myself, certainly over the year Merc had great aero and it improved with visible shrinking around the rear end in a very RBR style), having a lack of power to Merc cost them any shot at the title. Same engine + worse aero and they would have had a shot at the title.
It's easy to see why Horner would want that, and for cost reasons it's easy to see why a lot of the smaller teams would want something similar.
It's worth remembering that after pretty much every race they have a meeting where everyone but Merc engine cars want a new engine AND the lower budget teams want a new engine with a lot of reduced costs.
I'm no fan of Horner but every week they are just coming up with idea's. You won't find a format everyone agrees on by sitting there not making suggestions and I'm not sure having a go at a guy making suggestions will get you anywhere. Of course he wants more power, but the groups are meeting every race in the past 6 months with probably 6-7 teams wanting to find a cheaper engine/better way to move forward.
Of all the things to get irked at him over, it's not coming up with random engine ideas till maybe everyone agrees on one. Ultimately lower costs for the bottom teams would help and more competitive engines would likely bring a bit more competition and I don't see that as a bad thing either.
