How am I challenging a premise which nobody has bothered to clarify in the title? The “shtick” here is to end the discussion, to help bring this issue to a rousing finale, especially since it has gone on for not just 45 pages but also fifty years or so. The fun is in looking for ways to do that. While we may never find out what Matt Jefferies was thinking at the time, at least we can use DSC, Short Treks and eventually SNW to answer the question in canonical terms, bringing that part of the issue to a close.
But instead I’m getting answers here that suggest not even that should work, because it’s DSC, a different forum, so why am I talking about it in a TOS forum? Are we saying The Trek BBS isn’t interested in the franchise view of continuity, where TOS is just one show among many, increasingly constrained by whatever the latest iterations choose to do? Those are not just for different forums but also different age groups?? I thought we were all Star Trek fans, free to engage with everyone on how a particular iteration should fit or be improved, rather than split into factions to minimize friction.
I watch everything so I can say what I think in forums appropriate to the individual parts of the overall continuity, without thinking for one second that the shows I have issues with somehow “don’t apply”. If I did that I wouldn’t be talking about Star Trek at all, because what goes into Star Trek is not up to me. So either let’s discuss this from all aspects or simply retitle the topic “Did Matt Jefferies ever intend a funny angle for the bridge?” or “Is the bridge at a funny angle in TOS independent of the franchise?” I don’t see much point to the latter, but at least it would clarify that the question is about a hypothetical vision “free” of the latest continuity.