T'Pol only limited to an advisor would've gotten rid of a lot of dramatic tension and weakened her position a lot. I think T'Pol was the more interesting choice for first officer.
I'd still liked Malcolm to have had a bigger role. TPTB teased that one of their characters may have been gay. Reed should've been gay, ENT was ST's last chance to do a gay character while it was still a groundbreaking issue instead of it now being something that Trek is decades behind on.
Tired of this topic. Nurse Chapel was in love with Spock, Kirk screwed all sorts of alien babes, and Trip and T'Pol had a half-Vulcan cloned love child. Worf + Deanna. Not to mention Trip getting pregnant and Phlox having 3 wives and not caring if any of them slept with other people. Simple gayness between humans in the far future is positively tame compared to this stuff. What about nu-kirk being in bed with two cat-chicks with tails? Get TF over it already. ST isn't way behind- it's light years ahead. Personally I can't understand why humans want to go to Risa and screw some alien with a weird forehead. To me that's far more repugnant than being gay.