I think we're talking at slight cross-purposes - this is more or less what I'm arguing. SNW's use of the Gorn completely and irrevocably sucks, but it's a result of them trying (and, in my view, badly failing) to tie themselves into existing continuity - they're worshipping the idea of canon, rather than treating the franchise as a platform for storytelling.
Had they ignored pre-existing works and abandoned the idea of continuity, rather than desperately trying to refer back to it and integrate themselves with it, they would have made an entirely new hostile alien race without any regard as to whether it integrated well with TOS. That could have expanded the universe, perhaps given us fresher stories, and avoided the misuse of the Gorn (and the total impossibility of SNW's events meshing with "Arena") entirely.
That's what I mean by TOS and TNG not caring about continuity - things would happen in one episode and never be referred to again (Riker is heartbroken about killing Yuta in "The Vengenace Factor", then is yucking it up the next week with no further mention. Spock has mind control one week then forgets about it next week. And so on and so forth). This, in my view, is the best way to write Star Trek, and the Kurtzman shows' downfall comes in part from a staunch refusal to do exactly this.
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