Romulans were the main
conventional adversary in TNG. It would be silly to not mention what happened to them at all in the Picard Series. And just because that was the catalyst to change the direction Picard takes with his life, doesn't mean Romulus is going to be the focus of the series. It could be "This is what he's been up to for the last 12 years, and this is where we see him before the
real story starts" which might be something else.
Mulder and Scully were both in different places at the beginning of
The X-Files Season 10 before they got them back together. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were in different places at the beginning of TMP before they got back together. Most likely, they're just showing what Picard's been up to before the story moves him some place else, which is where the real focus of the Picard Series will be. Whatever it is.
It seems like the complaints leveled toward the Picard Series will be the same as the ones leveled against
Discovery. I saw this coming a while ago. In fact, let me cut-and-paste something of mine from October.
Here's exactly what I said on October 9, 2018...
Spoiler Alert: The Picard Series won't be a blank slate either. If you think having all the TOS stuff in DSC is bad, just wait until we have a series that takes place in 2399. You haven't seen anything yet. This is nothing. It's only going to get "worse" because now TNG, DS9, and VOY will be in play too.
For this reason, I'm pretty sure I'll prefer DSC over the Picard Series. Like 99.999% sure. But I'm not going to throw a fit just because the series will use stuff that's already there. I'm expecting them to. It'll just be a matter of how well they use it.