Until you stuff it full of glitter and firecrackers.
The bigger drain on the budget was not the models themselves, but the arduous tracking shots required to put many of them in motion at once. If I am not mistaken, many of the model were, in fact, off the shelf kits, not created newly for the show.
But weren't many of the Dominion war battles done in CGI?
Yes, they did, and it looked like crap. It was a big plate the SFX team couldn't handle. There was an episode where the Defiant was destroyed, and then another episode where another Defiant class ship was christened as the Defiant - A. THEN, there was another mindless battle episode where the old Defiant was guns blazing all over the screen when it was established it was destroyed and had a new registry identification.
Horrible. Completely horrible.
Nonsense.
DS9 (And Voyager and Enterprise) CGI effects were state of the art, and, for the most part, still look good today.
Reusing some effects in the finale has no bearing on their quality.
Also, What You Leave Behind is hardly a mindless battle episode.
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