It wasn’t a serious suggestion. I honestly don’t think the filmmakers gave it much thought, if any.
I’m guessing someone saw a picture or video of one of those tape libraries with a robotic arm and thought that would be a cool thing to incorporate into the scene. It might have made a little more sense if we saw the whirling arm grabbing things and moving them to different slots. Maybe that happened, but if so I didn’t notice.
Like that Chevy truck commercial - do you want to stand behind an aluminum panel or a steel one when someone is shooting at you?
It was a fun scene, but had so much wrong on every level. Yes, it was salt water (they referenced sea water used for cooling), so unmaintainable, leak-prone, and corroded. And there was a massive amount of water flowing in, but then what? There was no place for it to exit except the usually closed escape hatch. And why did she bother to grab Tom before pulling the escape lever, if doing so ejected everything anyway?
Oh well, still a fun movie.
No. 
I did like this movie, perhaps above the others in the franchise. Most of the stupid behaviors ended up making sense when you knew the context, which is unusual for this kind of movie.