Don't do that. Don't play with words, it's beneath you. Similarities mean exactly what you know I meant: things that are the same between them.
I know what you meant. But as similar as those components are, they are not "the same".
The TOS and TMP bridge domes are "similar." The Reliant and Enterprise bridge domes are "the same."
Walker and Shenzhou are similar. They are not the same.
No it's not. The Shepard uses several parts of the Shenzhou, off the shelf.
As I said, speculation at best. It's actually a lot more likely that the Walker was adapted from some of Eaves' concepts for the Shenzhou and then scratch built as a separate model in parallel with the Shenzhou. The similarities would be explained by the fact that the same VFX team fleshes out similar components the same way on different ships. Otherwise, though, the Walker doesn't actually appear to have the same design elements. The only elements identical to both ships -- namely the deflector dish and light panels -- are common to the entire binary stars fleet.
We're not discussing real-life considerations but fictional starship designs. The Walker and Shepard are the only two Discovery designs like this.
This is basically true: they're the only two starships that seem similar in ways that are realistically subtle, like you would expect from real-world aircraft, tanks and warships. In that sense, I would actually expect the Shepard is probably an immediate successor to the Walker class in a similar way that the Galaxy class is an immediate successor to the Ambassador. Indeed, it's probably a perfect parallel for all the changes; different nacelle pylons, different secondary hull, slightly different saucer design with the same overall shape, different engines, slightly different bridge domes, etc. (it's an even cleaner transition if you think about the Probert version of the Ambassador, IMO).