Shoulda separated the saucer?

[Atomic_Monkey]

If the whole shop is meant to function together, perfectly, then why?

That's a good point and something I always struggled with.

The probability of actually encountering something so new, and dangerous that any Federation ship would be destroyed with out warning, is nil, at best.

After three hundred years of star flight, and it meets things that can overwhelm it? Not realistic.

I'm not sure I follow? Are you saying that by the 24th century human technology will be so advanced, and/or humans are so familiar with space travel, that it's improbable a Federation starship could come across anything that could overwhelm it?

If so, I'm not sure I agree. Even though humans would have been traveling the stars for 300 years, they only managed to explore a sliver of the galaxy. There's still so much unknown out there.

This is particularly true for a starship whose mission is deep space exploration and seeking out unknown alien civilizations. The whole point is for them to come across crazy stuff no one had yet encountered. That could easily include aliens who've been traveling the stars for 3,000 years with significantly more advanced technology than Starfleet.

See the Borg as an example.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Yeah, I think the Federation should generally have very good technology relative to how long they've been in space, because they're a very tech-orientated society with dozens of advanced member worlds including the Vulcans and Andorians. But after 300 years of space flight, they're going to encounter lots of other species who have also had 300 years of space flight, or a lot more.