Why wasn't Beverly Picard's Nexus wife? It's possible that seeing Crusher in his Nexus fantasy, even an imaginary one, would have had a similar effect as seeing Guinan's echo, reminding him that there's a real world out there and this fantasy wasn't it. But I think there's a simpler and truer reason for that. Deep down, Picard didn't see Beverly as a life partner, and when he unconsciously created his Nexus reality, Beverly didn't have a place in it.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Janet_Brooks The wife actress, played an Ensign in season 4. Same person?
In my head canon she is. Which certainly raises questions about the death of Mr. Brooks. I wonder if him and Jack Crusher compared notes in the afterlife?
Because the people who never saw the show before would be confused why Picard's dream wife is the doctor character with like 5 lines and no real scenes with Picard in the movie. Jason
For the same reason why Edith Keeler, Janet Wallace, Carol Marcus, Yeoman Rand, etc. were not Kirk's Nexus girlfriends, but instead was some person we've never heard of before: because the writers wanted them to actually leave the Nexus, not stay there by the lure of people they really wanted to be with. Oh, and the fact that by Generations, the writers had completely given up on the idea that Picard and Crusher had any romantic attraction whatsoever, as for the next three movies McFadden's character became just a background extra that anyone could have played.
Probably because they never did much to establish the Crusher/Picardy romance, what with there not being a Star Trek character named "Picardy" and all.
If I'm going to seriously fanwank it (and, why not, I'm here), I'm reminded of the animated adaptation of the Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything," where Superman is trapped in a mind-prison not unlike the Nexus where he lives his ideal fantasy life, which is a very interesting mish-mash of elements from his actual life. The relevant one is that his imaginary wife has Lois Lane's voice and personality, but in Lana Lang's body, because apparently while Clark decided he and Lana worked better as friends, it wasn't because he didn't think she was super-hot. So, maybe Mrs. Picard in the Nexus was a composite of all of Picard's various romances (though we only saw her embodying the longest-lasting one, namely, the replicator that gives him his tea). On the other hand, in the original comic version of the story, Superman imagines he's married to some rando he had a fling with in an old comic where he went back in time and visited Krypton before it was destroyed, so maybe the Nexus wife was just the one who got away (who, if Jean-Luc is being honest with himself, it never would've worked with anyway).
LoLana was a physical blending of Lana and Lois, too. You'll notice that although she had Lana's red hair, she still had Lois' purple eyes.