By your own admission you like to do research, right? Here is a small project for you to undertake.... Go and research how much it costs to convert the entire electrical transmission packs and motors and then come back with a suggestion on where that money should be found.
Remember, you would not want to covnert just a few, since it just creates yet another subclass and adds to maintenance and inventory cost. So find the amount needed for the entire lot. The ask yourself, would that money be better spent in funding acquisition of a new locomotive batch rather than creating a small batch of possibly dead end locomotives, specially in a situation where new locomotives are available off the shelf, whereas this whole conversion thing has to be funded for design and execution for a limited number of units..