That just makes me want to see if they plan on fixing that shot in the HD version.
IMO, a "broadside" in TNG terms is measured more in the amount of energy in the phaser energy capacitors that can be fired before recharge. It is not tied to the number of phaser banks a ship has - those are just the emission points for the energy. If a ship has, say, ten units of energy that can be discharged in a volley, it can blow that all through one emitter or divide it accordingly depending on what the ship wants to hit, i.e. ten units through one unit, or five units through two strips, or three through two and the rest through one, etc.
Three examples:
In BOBW, Picard commands a "fire all weapons". I'm guessing Worf chose a spread of targets and those three strips could hit what he was aiming for, in that particular volley. Subsequently, then Shelby gets Data to randomize the frequencies, we only see the top emitter blasting away, suggesting they were pumping all their phaser energy to one point on the Cube to ge through their shields; it works. This extends to part 2 where Riker also commands all weapons, but only the dorsal strip was blasting away (using the same stock footage but omitting the nonexistent pylon emitters).
Similarly, in "Yesterday's Enterprise" alt-Picard asks for "continual fire, all phasers". At first they were aiming for all three targets via two emitters, but then it looks like the tactical oficer settled on one to linger on (arguably the one with the most shield damage so far), eventually blowing it up. I like to think that in hitting all three targets, they could instantly analyze feedback from the phaser beam or other sensor data and decide which one of the three ships would be the best recipient of the remaining weapon energy.
Finally, in "Conundrum", the E-D opens up on a bunch of small sentry ships. Multiple shots come from the same emitters, and often enough simultaneously from different places on the same emitter, to destroy them.
We know that in TNG Trek, shipboard phasers rarely have a problem hitting something, at least with continuous-blast type phasers seen on the E-D, the refitted DS9 and Voyager (Defiant was a whole other problem, but they could only fire directly ahead). The number of phasers strips and their placement seems more detpendent on getting best overlapping coverage around things like warp nacelles or torpedo tubes than stacking them up against a target. So if you assume that the phaser energy capacitors can push only so much energy per unit time, then it doesn't matter how many phaser banks are oriented at the target - two phaser banks firing would discharge the same amount of energy as one.
So in both the cases described above, if the Enterprise were firing at maximum power settings, then it would be more important to divide that energy between specific targets rather than orienting the ship to bring the most number of banks to bear. If that were the case, the E-D would have been forever showing its arse end to its targets.
Mark
