How about, during "The Seige of AR-588", somebody remembered that phasers have a wide-beam setting? It may have been unsporting and unstarfleet, but one guy on wide beam setting (as seen in TOS, mentioned in TNG and seen earlier on DS9) could have held that canyon by themself. Remember Ronald Tracy killing thousands of Yangs before his phaser ran low in "The Omega Glory"? It might have been interesting, the psychological ramifications for the guy holding the phaser.
I've also wanted to see a ship bombarding a planet from orbit, ever since the Enterprise had to eradicate dangerous spores from a planet in an old Gold Key comic book.