AGT Enterprise

[Captain Seafort]

I don't think it was the budget, but a desire to have the E-D in the future timeline to tie all three together. As for age, it would have been around for over thirty years - younger than the E-nil at the time of ST3, and far younger than the Excelsiors and Mirandas still in service.

[Teaos]

But this is TNG era where new ship designs seem to be spit out every 10 years.

[Captain Seafort]

The fact that they produce new designs frequently does not refute the point that Fed ships frequently remain in service for decades, and have been seen to undergo major refits.

[Teaos]

But my point was this is the flag ship. Sure ships would be upgraded but the Flag ship is always the most advanced.

[Captain Seafort]

Not necessarilly - during the Falklands War the task force flagship was HMS Hermes, which was almost 40 years old at the time, rather than the brand-new HMS Invincible. Riker probably took the E-D as his flagship because it was his old ship.

[Captain Peabody]

Coincidentally, I just watched All Good Things last night...

I voted yes, though some of the doodads on it are a bit much; but I absolutely love the huge phaser cannon on the front. Seeing it pummel those Klingon ships was heaven...

Oh, and Mikey; you have to remember that this is the first time the Negh'var model appears in Trek...so at the time this was a completely new design, just as 'futuristic' as the refit Enterprise. And you don't expect Medical ships to be packing very big levels of firepower and speed, anyhow...

Edit:

Not necessarilly - during the Falklands War the task force flagship was HMS Hermes, which was almost 40 years old at the time, rather than the brand-new HMS Invincible. Riker probably took the E-D as his flagship because it was his old ship.

Actually, there's a line in there that backs this up. Riker says that they had wanted to decomission the Enterprise, but that one of the perks of being an Admiral was getting to pick his flagship. I can't remember the exact quote, but that pretty much sums it up.

[Sionnach Glic]

I like it. It was nice to see a moderately competant Fed ship, for a change.

[Deepcrush]

Well lets not get used to seeing to many of them. This is starfleet.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Well, they have been getting better. The E-D was destroyed or near destroyed ever other episode. Voyager and the Defiant were both seen taking a licking and keep on ticking many times. Although the Defiant's hero syndrome failed and it was the first time a hero ship was permanently destroyed! I should not be this happy about that.

You know, I think coming up with an AGT would be possible in canon if done right. Like some remote starbase with only a Galaxy-class ship and a few support ships learns big bad guys are coming and decide to take the wreckage of another Galaxy(destroyed during the last season) and using it to uberize the working one.

"Let's use the old wreck. We can rebuild it. Make it faster and stronger. We will uberize it. We have the technology."
"Is uberize a word?"
"We can make it one. We have the technology."

[Captain Seafort]

The only problem is that the moneyless Federation doesn't have a million dollars.

To nitpick, the Deiant was the first hero ship to be lost - the E-nil and the E-D had already gone that way, and the loss of the E-nil was a far more emotional scene than either the Defiant or the E-D.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

E-nil was sacrificed and E-D...well what can I say about that? Anyway, the defiant's loss was like everyother ship in that fight. I hate how hero ships always seem to be better or tougher. Somehow the E-D always avoided being too heavily damaged despite being involved in stuff that should have left at least a few scratches. The Defiant's death was awesome because it fell like every other federation ship in that battle. It didn't have some immunity to the enemy's weapons.

[Tsukiyumi]

That scene was awesome, in part for that exact reason - I kept expecting someone to recalibrate, or compensate, or whatever, and then Sisko ordered the ship abandoned. And then, it was blasted to smithereens (though it did take a crapload of damage after the shields were down). I was quite surprised, honestly.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Well the Defient did have Ablative armor, which was seen taking multiple hits against a Klingon Vor'cha-class attack cruiser and still be able to outrun it(or at least match its top speed).

[Teaos]

Yeah we see Voyager get heaily modified over time so there is no reason why other captain in deep space wouldnt do the same.

[Captain Seafort]

Except the big reason that Voyager was tens of thousands of light years from the nearest repair yard, and therefore had to make do with the local equivalent of any replacement parts. Any modifictions made weren't to improve the ship, but to keep it going, since an unsuitable part would be better than none. A ship in Federation space wouldn't have to do that.