That is fair, but that is by no means an argument for Speck, but instead just an argument for a block mode cipher.

What they would need to do would be to find a different sensible block mode cipher, rolling a cipher-text stealing operation mode like XTS for a stream cipher (which is not that complicated, although one should do their homework first), or using a construct to convert a stream cipher to a block mode cipher so it can use XTS directly (which is possible, but care must be taken).

#2 would probably be best. I am not sure if it a trend, but I seem to mostly see new stream ciphers popping up, so this solution is likely more sensible.