If that era had been popular enough they would have never considered going prequal. They realised that style of show had become passe and needed to be changed. Too bad they didn't stick with that. Example 1 proves my point
As Voyager was in it's sixth season, Paramount executives asked Berman to begin work on a new series. They wanted another show set in the post-Voyager world. Berman suggested waiting at least a year or two before making another Star Trek, that they were risking oversaturating the brand. They told him that if he didn't do it, they would find someone who would, So he took Brannon Braga off Voyager, and they began developing an alternative, what would become Enterprise. It was conceived as a sequel to First Contact(One of the most popular Trek movies of all), set 100 years later, and 100-200 years before the settings of the other series. It was also conceived as a much more serialized drama, where the whole first season would take place on earth.
The studio said "No, it needs to be 'ship show' and we want it in the 24th/25th century like the others." Braga had been writing a treatment for a "time cop" type series(unrelated to Trek) and combined that with Enterprise, and told execs "Okay, we'll do this temporal cold war thing, and some of the series will take place in the future."
The fact that TOS crew was considered "higher brand" than TNG even though first run TNG was on the air longer and was the most recent speaks volumes. Plus the fact that Nemesis lost to a jennifer lopez movie on opening weekend proved that it's popularity had waned.
Example 2 proves my point
TNG was so far, the most profitable Trek series to date, with the widest audience. Nemesis was one of the biggest financial failures, possibly only surpassed by Star Trek Beyond. Irony?
Which again, is the era before TNG.
Example 3 proves my point
Would love to see links on this. Until then, this is just heresay.
Here you go.
https://www.google.com/search?redir...id-browser-type&qsubts=1508508010064&devloc=0
An excerpt:
"According to Fuller, his vision would begin with a prequel series (
Discovery is set before
Star Trek: The Original Series), and would continue through the eras that followed in
Voyager,
The Next Generation,
Deep Space Nine, and beyond. CBS instead decided to move forward with a serialized season, and would see how audiences responded."
They've only been avoiding it for the past twelve years since they pissed the fans off with that ENT ending.
They've been avoiding the TNG era because they pissed off fans with Enterprise?? argh??
Keep in mind, work on the 09 film began almost immediately after the cancellation of Enterprise.