I probably explained the reasoning a zillion lengthy posts ago, including my own. And since I am in the ‘no you don’t have to perfectly emulate a failed pilot’ camp, there’s no reason to conflate the two. Trek is like a period piece because Trek has always functioned with something like its own internal history (its never been perfect, but then, nor has actual history...Viking’s? Warriors? Rapists? Friendly farmers? How do we spell and say Boudicca? ) and so it functions like one from a certain production perspective. Using that as an example, you can have various levels of production design on anything set in a particular era...certain levels of detail, sometimes so much that two productions set in the same era can look almost totally different (say...Elizabeth the film, Elizabeth R the BBC TV series from the seventies, and The Tudors TV series. Though that last one has some amusing anachronisms like radiators apparently.) but are still clearly within that era. It’s the non-production details (mostly, I think most are agreed the Klingon ships are a design failure, and the jury is still out on the Klingons themselves.) like events and certain levels of progress that can jar with that (spore drives, holo displays) and other things that work with that (phaser design, communicator design) in the production design area.
So yes, Trek is a period piece, so how far you can bend it is the question. You could write ‘Star trek’ in front of say..Dark Matter (it shares many elements) but it would not be Star Trek. You can write it in front of The Orville, and it would be extremely close, but...it would not be Star Trek. DSC...well, there’s the question, and it’s production design is jarring in places. Only the narrative will ultimately answer that though, not if they all get colourful long sleeve T-Shirts in ten years time.
