Starship Platform Lifespans

[XCV330]

The thing is, most uses of the Reliant, Excelsior and Oberth models were originally envisioned as other, newer vessels in TNG:

USS Tsiolkovsky: Was meant to be a brand-new science vessel commissioned the same year as the Enterprise-D.

USS Fearless: Was meant to be the first appearance of Andrew Probert's Ambassador class.

USS Lantree: Was meant to be a newer very small supply ship with a crew of only 26 people.

USS Brattain: Was meant to be a newer small science vessel built in the 2330s with a crew of only 35 people.

USS Bozeman: Was meant to be a TOS Constitution class starship (not technically a 'newer' vessel, but a new model would have had to have been built for it.)

USS Raman: Was meant to be a new science vessel contemporary to the Enterprise-D (no model was ever built for it, but the Encyclopedia makes it an Oberth.)

USS Pegasus: Was supposed to be a newer ship commissioned only five years before the Enterprise-D.


So they weren't good at being upgraded so much as they were just the go-to models because the producers were too cheap to build new ones.

yes but I am speaking more theoretically in terms some sort of in-series rationale. If we go to real reasons, there will always be budget and design language reasons (some folks really loved Carrozzeria Bertone, in the 80s. Ent-D's chairs came right out of a Lancia Stratos. I digress.)

I used to find it annoying that they did reuse those models so much, especially Oberth, a ship I just find silly and ugly, but now I enjoy the idiosyncrasy of this massive star-fleet that makes many new ship designs will still leaving old ones in service and even building new copies of the old designs alongside the new ones.