How do they repair ships in outerspace?

[Crazy Eddie]

Which is just another way of saying "a wizard did it." Unless there's a canon reference dis-establishing matter-energy equivalence--which DIRECTLY establishes this equivalence can only be realized by annihilation--then the point stands.

If you wish to resort to draconian descriptions of 'a wizard did it', then go right ahead.
Keeping in mind the fact that we are in technological infancy today and SF operates on an entirely different angle (which also breaks numerous things we established to this day), making a preposterous claim that YOU know better and what we will be capable of doing in 200 years

I'm not the one making the claim. YOU are the one claiming it's possible, are you not? Then make reference to the specific science or technology that makes this possible. Otherwise, "200 years in the future" really is just "a wizard did it" by any other name.

Sure, maybe it's arrogant to assume the non-existence of the wizard. But I'm not going to assume its presence with no evidence to substantiate it.

Actually, I interpret on-screen evidence as a given with what was previously established

And since it was previously established that replicators reorganize matter instead of creating it completely from energy?

I don't draw things from a non-canonical book.

Since the book was written by the show's creators, I tend to think their interpretation is probably more reliable than yours.

And by 'factors', you mean, drawing from our own limited scientific knowledge of the early 21st century when compared to the late 24th century science and knowledge?

No, I mean simple mathematics. Unless 24th century science explicitly contradicts Special Relativity, E still equals MC squared, and a certain amount of energy is still equivalent to a certain amount of matter, and those factors remain in place.

So where in all of Trek canon is the contradiction of E=MC^2?

As for Cardassian replicators ... we saw on numerous occasions liquids and various forms of raw matter getting into several ship systems when they were damaged (and the malfunctions affected the entire station in that episode). Also point remains that those are Cardassian issue replicators built on a mining station decades before SF set foot on it.

Irrelevant, as they were stated on numerous occasions to function on the same basic principles as their Starfleet counterparts.

Oh I definitely concede the possibility that it's a highly sophisticated holographic technology, and yet, when we see the armor opening for the torpedoes, it's not a simple fading de-materializing effect, it's also physically opening.

What difference does that make? When the Doctor speaks his lips physically move. Why would you expect it to be any different for a holographic armor plate?

How do you know SF hasn't discovered a way to store equal amounts of energy and matter

They do. It's called "antimatter."

... or storing/producing much MORE energy than matter

Because if they had such a device, they wouldn't still be using antimatter.

Besides, E=MC^2 is still in effect, and therefore any physical medium for storing energy is equivalent to more energy than it stores. A five kilogram capacitor/battery/whatever will always contain less useable energy than five kilograms of matter and antimatter.

Not necessarily ... Voyager never engaged the Warp engines to begin with, and Admiral Janeway came from 26 years into the future, where technological discoveries could have been enormous by comparison

Which, again, fits into a holographic armor explanation. Besides, the fact remains that Voyager would still have to convert and then excrete every last ounce of its available fuel in order to produce an armor plate half that thickness (metal being far more dense than deuterium) and this still doesn't explain the use of armor on a shuttlecraft, which has NO room for a gigantic fuel tank to dump into the warp core.

Once again: energy-into-matter conversion requires alot more energy than you are willing to admit.

'Real science' (or rather what it established) was revised as time went on.

By who and when?

I keep an open mind to the possibility that replicators are merely re-arranging raw matter into new materials, but given everything that was shown on-screen to be done by SF ships to begin with ... to discard direct energy to matter transformation would be short sighted.

It wouldn't be shortsighted at all. The use of such a device on a starship would be just plain asinine when matter-to-matter conversion is still possible. It would be like installing a thermonuclear reactor on the space shuttle just to power a microwave and a water heater.