I'm not particularly fond of any "Starfleet intended to build the next Enterprise to be X", as a thing. Real-world navies don't build ships with names - they just build a ship and then slap a name on her. If there's a cool cruiser named Enterprise there, the next cool cruiser to be introduced might be named Battleaxe or Harmony, and the good name Enterprise might go to a fuel lighter or a survey ship, or not be used for a century.
However, at some point, Starfleet clearly does decide it's a good idea to always have an Enterprise (although she never quite gets to be the showpiece for newest tech, there always being some other class ship to the class where an Enterprise is only the second or sixth ship down the line). Is it right here, when the E-nil perishes under suspicious and even shameful circumstances, and suddenly we get an E-A? Is it when the E-A valiantly defends UFP values and gets ingloriously scrapped (?), and suddenly there's an E-B? Is it when the E-B gives way to an E-C, with unknown gap in between? When the E-C disappears, and Starfleet for twenty years decides not to name any ship the E-D?
I'm sort of thinking the transition from E-A to E-B is the first "regular" occurrence, the E-nil to E-A thing being unheard of in Starfleet history and only ever brought upon by the unique circumstances where Kirk has to be given a reward and a punishment at the same time. Before the nil/A thing, Starfleet just recycled names without further ado. But keeping on milking Kirk's good rep for propaganda value was so easy, they immediately jumped at the opportunity for giving their latest over-the-budget, below-the-specs, behind-the-schedule investment this illusion of continuity and painted NCC-1701-B instead of NCC-7890 on her.
Once addicted to this PR trick, they likewise created the Yamato-B, and milked that one till the Y-E at least. Perhaps the Galaxy class was such a big thing that they absolutely needed to "recycle reputations" there, at least twice, even though they had already given up on this scheme once with the E-C a few decades earlier?
That the E-A disappears after only moderate damage and a handful of service years is IMHO principally a sign of the design age of the Constitutions. Even the TMP refit is stretching things a bit, and Starfleet would be much happier to just retire all the ships in the 2280s already. The E-A may be an old yet "zero-houred" ship, or a true newbuild created chiefly because Starfleet needed a replica and not because they would have needed a starship; either way, she may be considered "brand new". But her design is the thing not worth perpetuating in the 2290s any longer; better make a fresh start.
...This start in all likelihood not being the E-B! Harriman's ship may well be in a completely different category of starships, and in no way intended to succeed Kirk's ship - she may be the newest 2290s battleship while Kirk's was the oldest 2290s cruiser, and Starfleet would retire some old battleship class and introduce some new cruiser class, neither of these involving the name Enterprise.
Indeed, I doubt any Enterprise was ever a successor to a preceding one, except in the most trivial sense. The E-B is too big to be the successor to the E-A, in an environment where Starfleet continues to operate ships sized like the E-A; the E-C design doesn't seem to inherit the workhorse mantle and related ubiquity of the E-B design; the E-D design admittedly may be what replaces the E-C design, but Starfleet drags its feet moving the name over; and the E-E again is a step down from the E-D sizewise and an unlikely candidate for a successor.
Timo Saloniemi
