TOS style could be call "the whim of a Federation interior designer". It was a different time. Maybe they felt like they could make things colorful and such. To get away from the retro-NASA look of Archer's ship and its kin.
It's not like Trek's sequels were a constant evolution either. The Enterprise-D had few and very minimalistic consoles - yet in Generations they add on a ton more (because it looks cool) and the Enterprise-E not only has even more consoles everywhere, but brings back the style of panel from STV's Enterprise-A a century prior. Ships more advanced than Voyager use the old Enterprise-A/Excelsior bridge set with only minor modifications.
On this we agree. I actually think the JJ films are what TOS would have been like had it actually been made after ENT.
And it's clear that TOS technology, in-universe, IS superior to Enterprise. Just because ENT tech looks better doesn't mean it is. Quite the opposite, actually. Just look at what happens in IAMD when the Defiant shows up (at about 0.36): [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA34za7zakw[/yt]
"In A Mirror Darkly" was what cemented ENT as a prequel to me. Prior to that, I wasn't really feeling it, but that one episode put everything together for me and I saw how it all fit.
Even with the shields down and power systems offline, an NX-class weapons do almost no damage to a Constitution-class starship. We aren't sure if the Mirror Universe version of the NX-class has better or worse weapons than the regular version. It is assumed they would be better considering the more militant nature of their Empire and that they had more NX-class ships in service than the regular timeline. Also that they would be able to suppress the likes of the Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites, before the rebellion would suggest at least moderately more advanced weapons than the regular Earth, which would be outclassed more most instances until late in the series added better torpedoes and more phase cannons to almost come up to the others standards. The video also shows how large the other races ships were. The Vulcan ship is much larger than USS Defiant, and the Andorian ships are about as large as Defiant.
Possibly, but even if it did, that proves the point even more. Even if the mirror universe NX is more advanced than the regular universe version, a Constitution class from the RU still kicked its ass...
True, but Enterprise was about a century before TOS or the reboot movies. In a lot of cases 100 years might as well be 1000 years. I mean, how often do you reference events from 1914 in your daily life, like the US invasion of Veracruz, the Greek Genocide, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, WWI starting, or the Tampico Affair? All big deals in their day, but not referenced much nowadays.
I think the timeline from Star Trek: Enterprise still exists. Remember, Nero only goes as far back as 2233. So anything that has happened before is most-likely to be what we saw in Enterprise. Each of the two films directed by Abrams has a mention of that era. From Scott mentioning how he lost Porthos, to the NX-01 on display at Starfleet Command.
The possible stumbling block for me is the Borg from First Contact being found in ENT. Clearly, that's meant for them to share the same universe. That gets more confusing with ENT being in the same timeline as the JJ movies, since we don't know for sure (do we?) that the Borg would be left there in the new timeline. I guess it makes sense that it probably does happen in a similar way, but since First Contact isn't in the same universe as the JJ movies...it's a little confusing. Just because they have the JJ movies have an Archer and ENT crew, their lives may have been slightly different from the tv series. Or not.
The split happens in 2233. Enterprise's adventures in the 2150s and the Borg's arrival in 2063 happen before that, so they are part of the Prime and JJ timelines. Data's head is probably chilling under San Francisco as well.
Though a Data might still be built, as a Soong was introduced in Enterprise...the path to the android is still viable. His head found randomly in the future. In rewatching the Enterprise clip again, with Defiant vs Avenger, I did notice something. While the Defiant took out the Andorian, Tellarite, and Vulcan ships very easily (Andorian and Tellarite ships need only one or two phaser strikes, and the Vulcan only a half dozen photon torpedoes to obliterate it), the NX-class Avenger required a bit more firepower to destroy. At least two phaser strikes and about a dozen torpedoes. Not sure what the humans were doing when they built the NX-class, but it can take a beating, even from the future.
THIS, this, this, and this! Yes, we got phase pistols instead of phasers. No shields (except in one false future episode). Phlox's animal husbandry in sickbay took things a bit too far, but YMMV. The torpedoes were pretty much rockets. No tractor beam. 'they left spacedock without a tractor beam!' Point is, the technology WAS pre-TOS. The look and feel was not. Two things I would have changed... okay, really its just one thing. The paint color. TOS and the TOS movies used a lot of white, both the exterior and interior of our good Enterprise(s). Excelsior, TNG, and later shows moved to shades of gray (without the bondage ). ENT should have stuck with white to keep it more in line with TOS or pre-TOS era. Or pick a completely different palate. The choice of gray just makes Archer's ship look like it time-warped off of the First Contact set. Stylizing the show to 40s 50s or 60s. I can already hear people complaining about a gimmicky approach. BUT I'm on board. ENT needed anything it could get to separate it from the pack and sadly the writing and acting wasn't getting it there.