Because he got lucky? Basically that's all it amounts to. Sure, good for him give him a medal... maybe even bump him up to lieutenant. But there's a reason why no sane military has 20something year old colonels or naval captains. THey have little practical experience. By the logic they use of putting NuKirk as captain, you may as well make Wesley Crusher captain because he's super smart.
Kirk pulled his crew together. I'm not so sure he did get lucky - at least no more so than happens in other Trek adventures. Wesley was smart, but had zero leadership skills. It's a bad comparison.
Promoting anyone was probably out of the question unfortunately. I was in the military (not the Navy though so maybe it's different) and units typically have so many slots for certain things, like they're only allowed so many clerical specialists and whatnot. It can be similar for rank. Sometimes you'll have a company XO who is a first lieutenant, but is promotable to captain. He won't be able to pin it on unless he takes command of the unit he's in and the current company commander moves on or he moves on to command a different company. It helps to avoid confusion in the command structure this way. It is likely similar on Voyager. Each section is probably allotted a certain number of personnel, job specializations, how many of each rank, etc. In the AQ, when someone is promotable and there are no appropriate slots to move into, that officer probably has the choice of being reassigned to a ship that does or remain stagnant at the current posting. Commander Riker is an excellent example of this. He's been promotable many times, but chose to remain Picard's first officer. He can't pin captain's pips until he moves to his own ship. This is also why you see two people competing for the same posting as seen in Lower Decks. One slot, two qualified officers. Stranded in the DQ, there are no ships to transfer promotable personnel too, hence no promotions. Harry Kim would have been a career Ensign unless someone ahead of him in rank and in a slot he could move into was KIA.
Interesting comment. To my eyes, Wang was the background character most likely to show emotion. (It was Beltran's Chakotay who was vacant when not in the spotlight. McNiell wasn't very reactive either.) Allegations such SFDebris' seem so far offbase as to make me think they are too offended at the prospect of identifying with Kim to see what's on screen. Kim was very much a token character, so near as I can tell it is only Wang's livelier portrayal that makes him stand out at all. I can't tell if being Chinese is the problem, or just being a geek. Reportedly Robert Duncan McNiell "couldn't" do technical jargon, which no doubt helped his character's image with a certain kind of viewer. Maybe part of the apparent distaste for Wang on the producers' part has to do with not taking direction to tone it down? But then when Wang reportedly didn't bother to show up "on time" for a bit part it made it uncomfortably obvious how much a token Kim was? Or maybe it was having girls around, scandalizing a powerful prude on set? Well, the cause of that is lost to deception and we'll never know. But Harry Hate is really strange. The character only played a major part in maybe a half dozen episodes out of 177!
The character was a loser. 7 years as an ensign, a dogsbody. He did plenty to merit promotion but obviously never had the guts to stand up and ASK for what he deserved. You see people like this in real life all the time sadly, they do a really good job but stay on the same salary or in the same position and complain that they are passed over for promotion constantly, and the reason is they are too scared to ASK for it, and expect to be offered it on a silver platter. Kim should have marched into Janeways office and slammed down a bunch of mission reports and a bunch of comparative personnel files of Lieutenants who have done a lot less in their careers than he has. Best case scenario Janeway promotes him, worst case scenario she doesn't. She can't "fire" him, and she wouldn't punish him for asking for what he in all honesty had earned, so there's nothing to lose. There's a reason it's called "climbing the ladder" it's a climb, you don't get a free ride up it, don't ask = don't get 9 times out of 10 But he wasn't that kinda guy. Same reason he never had a girlfriend in that 7 years he was "mr nice guy"
Didn't Paris get promoted, demoted and promoted again? Also Janeway handed out command level ranks to Marquis terrorists and Paris (criminal) like they were going out of style, so I don't think it'd be out of question in the setting. Also Data was Ops officer aboard the D and was a LT. Cmdr. Harry was only an ensign due to lack of experience, which he resolved many times over in the DQ to warrant a promotion
Janeway was filling slots that were opened up due to deaths. She chose to fill them with the maquis people for whatever reason. There isn't going to be enough room for everyone to be promoted as might be fair. Had Voyager been in the DQ for the entire 70 years, it would be expected that a good number of the crew would have earned much higher ranks had they been in the AQ, but you can't have a crew with a majority of high ranking officers so unfortunately many would remain stagnant in terms of rank.
Plus, Data, in addition to being in charge of Ops, was 2nd Officer and appeared to be the main Science Officer. PLUS HE WAS ROBUT.
Ensign, Lieutenant jg, lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander, Commander. Picard was a captain by 27, and Riker was 27 and a Commander in the TNG pilot, of course Riker probably got a "shut the fuck up" promotion after Pegasus. Although, since neither Cavit nor Chuckles were full commanders, Voyager does not need a full commander for the xo job, nor would a full commander feel fulfilled from being Voyagers XO. Ipsofacto... Any meteoric service that deserved the promotion to full commander would also mean to a transfer to a loftier position on more difficult and challenging command... even if Commander Bartlett was cruising the halls looking for trouble. The fish must be the right size for the pond.
The fact is the only time Kim really made an impression on me was in "Timeless". And that was a Kim in the future who was embittered because he'd killed all his friends. So....
That's right... Harry Kim is the member of the crew most likely to go postal on them. At least he'll have some nice angsty scenes of regret afterwards though!
They really thought the only way to make the aliens seem emotional is to make the humans emotionless? Well, mission accomplished Rick & Brannon. You made the humans so boring, everybody liked the aliens way better. Did they really have no freaking idea that this isn't the freaking sixties, and the entire Star Trek audience basically sees all the characters as equally human?! How did this guy get put in charge of Star Trek in the first place? Rick Berman must have also been in charge of the American version of Inspector Spacetime.