Nah, the Titan (or at least her design) was meant to be the main hero ship from the start. Her later being renamed Enterprise was just icing on the cake, IMO.
The lighting in Picard didn’t bother me, but I had a chuckle when I caught “Basics Part 1” on TV the other night and when the Kazon take over Voyager’s bridge (which is at red alert), Cullah says “Why is it so dark in here? Someone turn on the lights”.
And me. If they were to rename her anything at all it should be the Picard. But... just build another one. Craps all over the Titan legacy, and clearly it was deemed significant enough to be one of the ships to merit the letter suffix.
"Hello, your legacy is significant enough to get an -A after your name, isn't that nice! But there's a better name now with a bigger legacy, and rather than build a new ship for that name, we'll just erase you instead. Ta-ta! Bring on the Titan-B!" You really don't think that craps all over the Titan's name and legacy? Why not just make the Titan-B the Enterprise-G and leave the Titan-A alone?
Remember that TNG was filmed with different cameras than they use today. Just the switch to digital photography would make a significant difference.
The "Titan legacy" Which didn't exist prior to this series and a few episodes of Lower Decks. They literally made up the Shangri La class Titan for this series (Via the amazing work of Bill Krause mind you) and gave the Luna class Titan presumaly some sort of heroic end to justify the "-A" moniker. Mind you we haven't seen any of that, so I'm not sure what "legacy" the Titan had going into this. Granted it earned its place in history via the events of Frontier Day..but that is about it. Lots of ships have done momentous things and don't get the -A treatment. Unless we're now considering social media/campaigns as canon backgrounds in this case.
Matalas said that from the start he planned for one of the features of this season to be the origin story for the next Enterprise. Whether it was a good decision or not to start it off as a Titan is up for debate, but based on what has been stated, it was anything but a last minute decision, and rechristening is an established act in trek.
While I agree somewhat with @Macintosh about the convoluted nature of the starship renaming, I also agree that I never felt the Titan had any 'legacy,' other than the fact that we hadn't actually seen the ship for 20 years other than the Pocket Books version. I honestly wish they had just named the ship something else and said that it was Riker's last command before retiring. That would have alleviated the need for all the unclear 'refit' nonsense. Not that I think you're wrong, but do you have a source for that?
Fan: With the crew of the Titan-A earning the respect of fans and critics alike, how hard was it to rename her during finale? Matalas: Not hard. In our mind, we were writing the origin story of the next Enterprise and that the Titan name would live on in a proper new Luna Class ship. The Titan-B. Hopefully glimpsed in some future show.... We loved the idea that we were watching the origin story of the new Enterprise. https://www.reddit.com/r/television...rry_matalas_showrunner_and_executive/jh644ye/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Picard/comments/12u9c26/im_terry_matalas_showrunner_and_executive/jh6atas/
I see. So Matalas mentioned this after the fact once the show finished airing. So I'm treating this quote as a bit suspect. But that's just me; no offense.
...what alternative is there? was he supposed to tell everyone about it before it happened? should he have also told everyone about jack and the borg and ro laren beforehand too? was shelby a last minute addition because he only talked about it after the episode finished airing? kind of a strange point you're making there.
A "last-minute decision" could sum up most of the big reveals this season, IMO, but my main point was that the Ttian was always meant to be the hero ship this year. Her being renamed the Enterprise at the end was just a bonus.
I didn't like that either. Naval tradition avoids renaming ships as a rule. Should have just kept it the Sao Paulo. But then they'd have not been able to use all that stock footage...