A missed opportunity.

[Atekimogus]

I agree that it was a nice sentimental scene. My objection is that it doesn't actually make any sense in terms of plot logic. I remember even at the time, as a kid, I walked out thinking that it didn't make a lot of sense.

Maybe, and that might be a bit of a stretch, they had enough parts lying around and since the Constition went out of production they decided to use them to cobble one or two together since - despite being older - is still a more than capable ship-class.

Similar to the GCSs were they build 6 or so iirc aditional hulls to be completed if and when needed. So maybe they had a few reserve constitution hulls stored somewhere and decided to complete them before they became completely obsolete. Would also explain why they get the new ship so fast.

It also occurs to me that a similar issue happens with the Enterprise-B. Clearly they wanted a "new" ship there, but there's only really room in the lineage for it to be an Excelsior. So their solution was just to trick up the Excelsior and make it different. Again, from a plot logic point of view it doesn't really work well IMO... the B should have been a simple Excelsior class.

From what I gathered it was supposed to be just an Excelsior class ship. The bits and pieces on the main hull were only added for one reason only, so they could break and demolish them for simulating the nexus damage while preserving the underlying Excelsior model. Iirc the MSD in the back even shows just a normal Excelsior class ship.

That is, afaik, the only reason for the change.

[Varthikes]

I imagine that the general fanbase might have been a consideration.

I understand there was an uproar when the original Enterprise was destroyed in Star Trek III, and one of the challenges TNG had when it started was getting the audience to accept this strange new Enterprise. Introducing another strange new Enterprise at the end of Star Trek IV, a year before TNG premiered, might have been a little too much for some.