Did you work out those odds or are they just random?
So I didn't sound authoritative enough?
...do you think they'd use Star Trek V's idea of another energy barrier, just ignore it, or come up with a reason for it dissipating since the 23rd century?
The odds of the writers bothering to do anything but "ignore" would be about 47%.
Really, if the ship had gone to the core, and no mention was made of the ST5 barrier, we could simply declare that the barrier was either short-lived or localized. It would be problematic for it to be either of those, though, as ST5 makes it sound as if the Barrier was there in order to guard the imprisoned God, and the God had been rotting there forever. A partial, short-lived jail just wouldn't do.
Of course, it may be that the Barrier was not the creature's jail, but merely an incidental astronomical phenomenon. And as such, it could be short-lived or localized - or then all-encompassing and eternal but essentially harmless, as pretty much demonstrated in ST5. People from Earth would have feared it in the 23rd century, but would ignore it in the 24th.
Personally, I'd like to claim that the Barrier and the God's prison were in the
direction of the galactic core, but only a short fraction of the distance there. That wouldn't be in explicit conflict with ST5 dialogue, and that would allow approaches to the core from all other directions.
(Similarly, the trip to study the galactic core in TAS "Magicks of Megas-Tu" would be made
towards the core, to a suitable vantage point, and not
into the core. Hence, no future traveler to the core would necessarily have to meet Megas-Tu.)
Timo Saloniemi