As I was visited Germanisches Museum at Munich, one of the very interesting exhibition was very tiny "locks" gallery. (Sorry, I couldn't find the photo now) There was very complicated locks already from Ancient age of Romans, early Medieval times with unbelievable mechanics and beautiful ornaments. Then at the middle of the 14th century, everything changes brutally. As totally unacquainted person even I can see how poor the crafting, how cheap looking the material that they used. First, I couldn't understand the reason. A second later I remember the Great Plaque. All the master was killed by plaque and people try to survive, no one cared about ornaments or crafting. They have sure books or survivers to learn how to make it better, but they didn't care, their priority was to survive. Functionality was their only requirement.
What could be reason, why people thought the first Borg contact was at 2365? If we got at least season five, we would see a war, a great war which caused for the next hundred year totally contact breaking for the defeated power: Romulan War!
Well, it should be a -fast- Pyrrhic Victory for the Coalition of Planets. Degree of destruction should be unimaginably. (And I don't forgive the people who caused the cancellation of ENT . Yeah, I know..My problem

) And for me it is "the" reason why NX-01 looks better and functional than NC-1701 (remember the locks!)