I think that the original effects represent, not the ideal intent of their creators, but their best approximation of what they hoped to achieve. I think the new FX shots are generally true to the intent and style of the originals, just taking them farther in terms of realism and detail and averting the reuse of stock footage to represent new ships or locations.
And as an old-time Trekkie, I loved getting to see new shots and angles of the gorgeous original Enterprise, as well as getting to see new ships from the period or to see designs established elsewhere (ShiKahr, the TAS cargo ship, and the Vanguard-style starbase) incorporated into the show. It makes the universe feel fuller and richer.
And I loved how they depicted Murasaki 312 in "The Galileo Seven," because it made sense of the "quasar" description from the episode. At the time, people didn't really know what -- or where -- quasars were, so it wasn't too incongruous then, but we subsequently figured out that they're active black holes in the cores of very distant galaxies, making the idea of the Enterprise surveying a quasar sound quite silly. But there's a more recent concept called a microquasar, which is a normal-size black hole with radio jets and an accretion disk, like a smaller version of the galactic-core quasars. And the TOS-R team chose to depict Murasaki 312 as just such an object, while still maintaining the shape and color of the original green-cloud effect. So they stayed true to the aesthetics of the original while making it far more scientifically plausible, and that's an awesome bit of legerdemain.
