One of my biggest gripes with some of the design choices in Star Trek has been the fact that Starfleet ships are basically just Earth ships. Enterprise was the series that made it clear that Starfleet was basically just the UESPA carried forward. The NX-01 was basically a traditional Starfleet design despite the fact that it predates the Federation. The problem is that it means that Starfleet did not obviously benefit from the technological innovations of the other members of the Federation. Compare this to the Babylon 5 universe, where each of the member races of the Interstellar Alliance had distinct ship designs, but eventually the ships used by the Rangers and on Crusade looked like amalgamations of at least Earth, Minbari and Vorlon technology. In the Stargate universe, the SGC/IOA eventually ends up with ships and technology that looks like amalgams of earth designs with alien tech.
In making early pre-Federation ships look exactly like what would come later, the creators of Enterprise missed the opportunity to show one of the biggest benefits of the nascent Federation. Suppose the Andorians had been traveling in flying saucers, the Vulcans could keep their ring ships but the core of the ship could have been long and cylindrical like a secondary hull. Earth ships could have been bricks with warp nacelles or even featured the spherical primary hull of the Dadelus class. When you put all of those elements together you start to see the origin of the Constitution class.
it seems like a wasted opportunity.
In making early pre-Federation ships look exactly like what would come later, the creators of Enterprise missed the opportunity to show one of the biggest benefits of the nascent Federation. Suppose the Andorians had been traveling in flying saucers, the Vulcans could keep their ring ships but the core of the ship could have been long and cylindrical like a secondary hull. Earth ships could have been bricks with warp nacelles or even featured the spherical primary hull of the Dadelus class. When you put all of those elements together you start to see the origin of the Constitution class.
it seems like a wasted opportunity.