I have to say, I love the rendition of San Francisco... THAT is how it looks in real life... gray... the city is known for its fog, dampness, and gray weather... if anything, the bright and sunny views we always got on TNG of the city were out of the norm... so I hope we see some real San Fran weather in the film.
Yep. A little bit more realism in Trek - local weather.

Kirk is a remarkably well-educated and thoughtful man - a student of history and classic literature, with a scientific education and turn of mind that enables him to understand "fantastical" situations and Spock's (supposedly) brilliant reasoning intuitively. This is one of the aspects of Kirk's character that Orci, for one, has made clear that he gets. Orci's a more observant Trek fan than most of the insistent Protectors of the True Faith who are sometimes rampant on the Internet.