I've just seen a Maquis ship chart made by a fan on DeviantArt that included the Yeager-Type, and it got me thinking. What if that variant was actually devised by the Maquis?
They had a few of the larger Ju'day-Class variants (for all we know a civilian cargo ship or colony transport) that were well past their prime then, thanks to a little thievery from a Starfleet junkyard, they found a couple discarded Intrepid-Class saucers that didn't meet design or safety standards. Some ingenious Maquis mechanic bolted the two together hoping to give them a more capable ship, but all they were ultimately used for by the Maquis was to evacuate civilians from the DMZ when the Cardassians joined the Dominion. Starfleet seized the ships and when the war broke out, they were forced to give them a quick upgrade and get them into service.
A crazy theory, I know, but just trying to look at other possibilities.