Take it from how The West Wing was originally planned. The show was moreso supposed to focus more on Sam and Josh while Bartlett was supposed to be in every three or four episodes. Then the producers and Martin Sheen wanted him to be in every episode. It could potentially work for Trek.
You can certainly do smaller, more personal stories on TREK, but when the whole idea is that you're out there exploring strange new worlds and civilizations, and crossing vast vistas of space, that sort of lends itself to storytelling on a similarly impressive scale. Space is big, as Douglas Adams wrote, so sci-fi tends to big stories as well. Granted, you don't have to save the entire galaxy every episode, and I suppose it would be possible to tell a story like "Journey to Babel" or "All Our Yesterdays" from the POV of a junior officer, but, again, if Ensign Foley is saving the ship and making the tough calls week after week, audiences may start rolling their eyes and wondering just how useless the captain is anyway.
Here's an idea...we always hear Starfleet is about exploration, but that's really only a small facet of what we see. How about those troubleshooters who go in after and investigate those off-limit planets, Dyson spheres, and rapid increases in tech and so on? That's more in line with trek than Seal Team Starfleet. Think Fringe and USS Grissom (minus captain Esteban). RAMA
Silicon-based life probably has much higher temperatures than carbon-based life. So yes, Foley the Horta would be extremely hot. Kor
So make it a comedy. That would be a brand new Star Trek, eh? Think Futurama's Zapp Brannigan, whose roots are solidly Captain Kirk, and Kif Kroker - except "Kif" is the star. Leslie Moonves would love it; Big Bang Theory in space. Perhaps they could use Captain Bateson and the crew of the Bozeman with Kelsey Grammer in his Frazier personage in the Brannigan role.
I'd say the foundation is The Mission (whatever that may be in the specific series). The captain embodies the mission (unless they decide on a rebel antihero captain, extremely unlikely). But it would be good to see how other crew members devote themselves to the mission too, something beyond "Klingons off the starboard bow" and updates on warp engine status.
Holy cow! I do remember seeing that before, but I swear it did not enter my mind while writing my post. And George Harrison did not rip off The Chiffons' "He's So Fine" either.
That seems pretty sensible. Why not make their inclusion limited to a few episodes, not implying that they will be regular characters, who would perforce be limited to just a few minutes of attention? As has been said before, they could be depicted as integral members of an away team on a certain mission as the lead-in to fleshing them out as individuals with interesting stories to tell, rather than showing them at all in their everyday shipboard roles. Or alternately, aboard ship, they might become involved in a crisis, not of the personal melodramatic variety, but let's say something that puts them in a confrontation with or dilemna involving someone on the command staff. These certainly could be written as compelling stories or character studies. One could argue I suppose that with only 13 episodes or so, giving over even one to crew members that will not appear recurrently is too much of a concession when the show has to aggressively establish its bonafides during the first season. If that might be a reasonable rationale, there wouldn't be any reason that what is described above couldn't be worked in during the second season of what has become a successful program.
I never thought there would be such a thing as Horta humor, but here we are. Love it. What if we see an actual character's journey through the ranks? Like what if the scale started small, but then escalated? That seems to be the trend of popular shows. They don't plop people right into Star Wars (ANH, if you will), they build up to that. Not that it will happen, but what if the story was about a young Kirk or Picard as they worked their way up through the ranks? They may not have to be another Wesley Crusher. They could make mistakes or learn from others to become a great hero. Earth could still be in danger, and they could still take part in what's involved without being the crew member that does some monotonous job. It's at least got a large potential for serious character development. More than what most Trek has shown.