Yup, a terrible example of we-think-we're-clever worldbuilding or we-ran-out-of-nostalgia-trademarks worldbuilding indeed. And the possible explanation of the Equinox incident being classified by Starfleet Command out of embarrassment just doesn't work when almost no information in STO is ever hidden from the player character because the game runs itself on marketing with homages / references / nostalgia.STO choosing to name a Nova class variant the Equinox class was certainly a choice.