I feel the exact opposite. I think Starfleet became a hot mess in general and on his watch in particular. Introducing new uniforms every season, ditching the perfectly reasonable Stargazer for the anachronistic Titan, devaluing letter-suffixes, throwing out the established class-system with terms like Constitution III class, nonsensical background stories (Titan-A being a refit of the Luna class Titan, new Stargazer being a refit of the Constellation class Stargazer, Saavik rising from a mere Lieutenant to Captain of the Flagship within 5 years, Uhura exploring the Magellanic Clouds), decomissioning Enterprise-E and F too soon, Riker also being former captain of Titan-A, costume designers for PIC and SNW having no clue about rank structure, etc...
Honestly, small detail only 5% of trekkies really care about. They just know these thing are exceedingly cool, tingle the synapses with familiarity, and create some detail for the universe. Regardless, nothing that would override a good story.
We don't know if Terry wrote that. That fact also isn't readable in the actual episode, so you can easily ignore it. No he wasn't. Neo-Constitution Class is another name given for it if you don't like numbers. Why did you mention SNW? Terry has no hand in that show. Costume designers also don't assign ranks to the characters, that's the writers. And what did either show get wrong with rank structure?
Exactly so. If it is a good story then much will be forgiven (glares in TWOK). If the story is poor, no amount of continuity porn will make it better.
I didn't say Terry was to blame for everything and I mentioned it as background information. Sorry, I might have misundestood his last interview Constitution III class is what is on the dedication plaque. I just feel it's confusing to recycle a class-name mere 100 years later. That's just fanwank IMO. I said Starfleet in general, so that includes SNW. Off the top of my head only Pike and Uhura wear rank insignia matching the dialogue. And some pretty weird official rank charts have been posted for PIC Starfleet and Confederation.
I'm more confused about it not being a Shangri-La II-class, since it looks a hell of a lot more like a Shangri-La-class than a Constitution-class. I hate recycling class names too, even when Discovery did it in the 32nd century.
I think he was just referring to it being named after his former command. We'll just have to wait and hear what they say in dialogue.
Heh ... Fanwank has been a backbone of Star Trek story telling since The Wrath of Kahn. Kinda-sorta too late to be pissin' & moanin' about that now.
In reality I thank the first real true fanwank in Trek is Star Trek The Motion Picture. You can make an argument that the film itself is. But absolutely the loving extended introduction of the Enterprise. And in that I really didn't mind to much.
Starfleet is basically the US Navy in space with colonial era Royal Navy trimmings. In over fifty real world years of of the franchise's history that spans over a thousand fictional years within continuity, we have never seen Starfleet engaging in an "alien" tradition. Vulcans are all about logic. I doubt they would see the logic in renaming a ship just so the name can be used on a newer ship. Tellarites and Andorians are probably annoyed that despite being founding members of the Federation, there are no Starfleet ships using names from their cultures.
So we got a picture of the Enterprise-F, briefly in the premiere. Obviously teasing us to its actual appearance later in the season.
PICARD: We're going on the Titan. Your old command. RIKER: It's the only sway I've got. It's the new refit. Neo-Constitution class.
It does, yes. There's something else from the TNG Technical Manual I keep thinking about -- replicating starships. It's mentioned as a possibility, with a footnote that a civilization that can create starships using replicator technology really doesn't need starships. Maybe, circa 2400, the Federation really is at the cusp of the breakthrough of harnessing energy that they really can come pretty close to building starships at the press of a button. It actually might be "cheaper" to scrap a starship with serious spaceframe damage that requires time, effort, and resources to repair and instead replace it with a brand-new ship.