I dunno there seems to almost always be a group of people who hates change.
I know, however did they get that idea? Also according to that....let's be very, very generous and call it an "article", almost everybody on the Enterprise D is a commander. Commander Yar, Commander Data, everyone.
Also it makes me wonder...did people really expect the cast of TOS to return for a new TV show?
I'm not gonna even address the silliness of the TOS cast being "perfect", that's just individual preference and quite possibly nostalgia tainted glasses, just like somebody preferring a particular X-Men, Titans or Justice League lineup.
Some people might have - for the nostalgia factor. But at the time the makers wanted a younger crew, thinking forward and expanding the franchise. Even Gene was against Romulans being used as a crutch for the show because of their popularity (despite being in only 2 episodes) as he wanted the show to go outward (and fix some of the issues he felt hurt TOS, like having no ready room, Captain beaming down into danger every week, etc).
Again, it is types of change - the details of the change can be more intriguing and be the impetus for a like or dislike of the change. New characters vs established ones. How is growth or development defined. Heck, and this just occurred to me, do the actors even like their roles from week to week depending on what gets changed to be filmed? There's always a group, it's just not always the ones we're expecting?
I do recall kids mocking leaked news for Star Trek IV in saying how Kirk would find a TARDIS or DeLorean... I didn't believe they were going to do a time travel story so I shrugged it off. I was also a year too early and in the wrong place to get the now decades-outdated scoop for a lot of early TNG, apart from my own takes at the time... Most of us in AV and electronics clubs were more into ubernerdy Dr Who anyhow. But I digress--
So even back then they disliked change (or thought sci-fi was for the nerds and geeks.) I adored IV at the time, but it's so entwined with 1986 lifestyle that it's dated horrendously for the most part. The line about money contradicts a number of TOS episodes and is also used as a joke too. And at least they made their own punk song and made it felt authentic to the punk subculture. So many movies try to do the same thing, make something in the spirit of a style and it falls flat at best...
But for TNG I wasn't anywhere near the folks who said "Data was the most human character on the ship" and/or "the blind guy piloting ship, har har". There was a a fair amount of derision at the time. Granted, I did succumb an equation of Data as "Oh, Spock trope" at the time. And yet I wasn't there with the crowd screeching over Pulaski being a McCoy clone (even I could tell she had differences in character attributes. And where were those screechers when VOY's EMH came about? There's a McCoy clone, right down to catchphrase dialogue.)
(especially with Brent Spiner's giveaway of "Commander Data" except it's not a sci-fi parody where the token nerd is called "Data" as pejorative slang...)
