Also, the loss of an ability is not atypical when technological progress is made. It's perfectly possible that the E-D could have had a more advanced tractor beam system than the E-nil, but one where the designers didn't bother to install a reverse mode.
Also, Wesley did reverse the tractors of the E-D by MacGyvering them, rather than by pushing an existing button found in the manuals. That is indeed genius. Whether it was necessary genius, worthy of Riker's praise, or just silly showing off, is unknown - but we could decide that since the drunken engineers had paralyzed the warp drive, they had also paralyzed tractor beam controls, and indeed Wesley's MacGyvering of the controls was the only possible route to salvation.
So let's not necessarily consider a tech "forgotten" if it doesn't see application in an episode. In ST:TMP, automatically triggered shields would probably have doomed our heroes and sealed the fate of Earth, since V'Ger preferred to neutralize everybody it felt was a threat. The heroes did agree on proceeding cautiously, and only raising shields when needed; it would make eminent plot sense for them to have turned off the auto-raise functionality of the shields. The same logic would apply to many of Picard's TNG confrontations: auto-shields would have been a sign of aggression whereas an unthreatening posture was required to save the day.
Timo Saloniemi
Also, Wesley did reverse the tractors of the E-D by MacGyvering them, rather than by pushing an existing button found in the manuals. That is indeed genius. Whether it was necessary genius, worthy of Riker's praise, or just silly showing off, is unknown - but we could decide that since the drunken engineers had paralyzed the warp drive, they had also paralyzed tractor beam controls, and indeed Wesley's MacGyvering of the controls was the only possible route to salvation.
So let's not necessarily consider a tech "forgotten" if it doesn't see application in an episode. In ST:TMP, automatically triggered shields would probably have doomed our heroes and sealed the fate of Earth, since V'Ger preferred to neutralize everybody it felt was a threat. The heroes did agree on proceeding cautiously, and only raising shields when needed; it would make eminent plot sense for them to have turned off the auto-raise functionality of the shields. The same logic would apply to many of Picard's TNG confrontations: auto-shields would have been a sign of aggression whereas an unthreatening posture was required to save the day.
Timo Saloniemi
