It wasn't that they looked bad (I thought it was neat to see something new), it was that it looked pathetic because they only used 3, and they in reallity, did less then anything else we've seen thrown at the borg. In every single fight scene with the borg, they get hit by whatever is being thrown at them, and they take it well. In this case, they may as well have been 3 cadets flying for the first time.
To me, it truly suggested the futility of resistence, and only furthered the joke of Earth never having any sort of defence fleet.
But like you said- budget is a key factor in these things, and if the show had the money, I'm sure we'd have seen more of a fight.
