Anyone who's paid close attention to the past 700 episodes and 10 movies of "Star Trek" will recognize two basic facts:
1. Every instance of time travel uses a different method and scientific rationale (warp-10 slingshot, Guardian of Forever, chronometric displacement, Bajoran Orb of Time, temporal Nexus, time vortex, etc.), and has a different result (self-fulfilling time loop, multiple parallel timelines, altered timelines that can be "repaired" through further meddling, etc.).
2. Through all the "Star Trek" series, there have been at least two dozen distinct and mutually exclusive timelines (not even including the self-fulfilling causality loops). For example, in TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise," it depicted the original timeline where the Federation was at war with the Klingons; Picard's decision to send the Enterprise-C back in time to save a Klingon outpost created the alternate timeline that we see in every other TNG episode, where Worf serves in Starfleet and the Klingons are allies.
The entire series of "Star Trek: Enterprise" takes place in the alternate timeline created when Picard and the Enterprise-E went back in time to fight the Borg in "Star Trek: First Contact." "Enterprise" episodes showed wreckage of the Borg sphere on Earth, and mentioned Cochrane's recollections of the Borg attack. (We can assume that after the Enterprise-E returned to the future, it returned to the "Enterprise" timeline, rather than the one it was in at the beginning of "First Contact.") So the movie "Star Trek: Insurrection" takes place in the future of the "Enterprise" timeline that was started in "First Contact."
The final episode of "Voyager" depicted Admiral Janeway creating a new timeline where the U.S.S. Voyager got back to Earth 20 years early. This alternate timeline was continued in the movie "Star Trek: Nemesis," as evidenced by Admiral Janeway's appearance in that film (when the Voyager and Captain Janeway would still be trapped in the Delta Quadrant for another 20 years in the "original" timeline).
There are dozens of other episodes over the past 40 years where new timelines are created within the episode, and then the series just continues on from the point of view of that new timeline.
In fact, the last four "Star Trek" movies have each taken place in a different timeline from each other.
"Generations" created a new timeline where the sun did NOT explode, and everyone did NOT die, due to Picard and Kirk changing the timeline.
"First Contact" started in the "Generations" timeline, then passed through the Borg-assimilated-Earth timeline, then created the "Star Trek: Enterprise" timeline where the Borg attacked Earth but were stopped.
"Insurrection" took place in the future of the "Star Trek: Enterprise" timeline created in "First Contact."
"Nemesis" took place in the "Admiral Janeway" timeline that was created in the "Voyager" finale.
And, according to this latest report, "Star Trek XI" will take place in yet another timeline, possibly starting in the "Admiral Janeway" timeline of "Nemesis," then spawning its own alternate timeline through time travel.
My point is that each of the last five "Star Trek" movies has taken place in a different timeline from the one before it. It makes no sense to criticize the "Star Trek XI" writers for this, when it has already been going on in the four previous films (whether the writers were aware of it or not).
Aesthetically, every one of the movies has taken liberties with set design and costumes and makeup, starting with "The Motion Picture," so whether the new Enterprise bridge's glass-and-chrome design is the result of an alternate timeline, or just the filmmakers' creative license, it is nothing that hasn't been done a dozen times before.
There is no "official" "Star Trek" timeline. The series has taken place through dozens of mutually exclusive timelines, so creating just one more timeline in this new movie will not invalidate all 750 past episodes; it will just add one more timeline to the dozens that have already been created and incorporated into the series.
