No, no no... don't take me the wrong way.. I didn't mean that Jefferies screwed up the design, moreso that we, those that designed the ships after him starting veering away from his concept and putting more aerodynamic features into Federation ships. Heck, even Probert did this to a minor extent with the aft section of the engineering hull and pylons on the Galaxy class.
I totally get Jefferies logic in his original design, similar to how he thoughtfully made the Constitution class' pylons so uncharacteristically thin.
But when you look at the more recent designs of Fed ships, the aerodynamic features are there... think of the Scout ship from Insurrection, the Aeroshuttle, even Voyager (admittedly, it was designed as an atmo-capable ship from the start), and the Defiant have characteristics of atmospheric capable vessels.
If anything, I was trying to imply that we have gotten away from the original concept behind starships in the 23-25th century. One exception I can think of without researching is the Enterprise-J... the noodle thin, spindly pylons holding onto allegedly space-time folding nacelles clearly invokes an other-worldly, far futuristic level of tech.