But we don't know which would win out, a small computer with a few gel-packs and a few isolinear chips, or a large one with a gadawful number of isolinear chips. Perhaps the
Intrepid is just barely on par with
Galaxy after the unfair advantage of gel-packs is factored in?
And to be sure, we don't even known that the gel-packs would be better than the isolinear chips. We just know that the
Voyager has the gel-packs, and that she is a new ship. Perhaps the packs are cheaper and thus preferred, even though inferior otherwise? The technobabble at Memory Alpha isn't canonically supported...
Timo Saloniemi