Gotta love this type of total virtual discussion, lets get on with it :)
The Defiant is neither a flagship nor a fleet mainstay nor anything. Its probably a good choice for the type of missions there were. And it did well, considering her development status.
Dont know if a Galaxy class would have been stealthy enough, with or without a cloaking device, and if it would have been agile enough for all those skirmishes. Cloak would have demanded a lot of energy, I guess.
As for the Voyager and her praised success against the Borg, well, hardly Star Fleet equipment responsible. Say thank you to Seven of Nine, Captain, otherwise the Voyager would not have got even near to any of those Borg installations. But Seven of Nine and the Doctor were undoubtedly pluses for the show.
But in which DS9 differs so much (and thankfully so) to STTNG and Voyager is the absence of black and white only. Hard choices, shady characters alongside principled ones, and even those have a hard time doing the right thing, and often cant, or dont want to. Someone mentioned the episode “In the pale moonlight”. Now try that with Jean-Luc :)
Garak and Bashir, Odo and Quark, Kira and Damar / Dukat, Dax and the Klingons, so many characters with different mindsets and views interact in this show, I just dont see that anywhere else in that scope. And then Gowron, Martok, Founders, can you ask for more unique characters that have regular appearances?
Too few Romulan encounters, as always, but very good when they are here, as always ;)
Cardassians, Dominion, Klingons, all are there, and even if the Borg are always interesting, I dont miss them here. The Klingon / Romulan episodes of Next Gen were good in general, too, though.
Whats really hard, though, is deciding the following:
Best Captain: Ok, we had that. No consensus, predictably (thank god for that)
Best Medic: McCoy, Crusher, Bashir, EMH, Phlox (probably 1 and 3, with 4 most entertaining)
Best Science: Spock, Data, Dax, Tuvok, T’Pol (now that is a special tough one)
Best Chief Engineer: Scotty, La Forge, O’Brien, B’Elanna, Tucker (very hard between 1 and 5)
Best Second in Command: Well, that concept was not there always, but we have Riker, Kira and Chakotey (Riker between the two former)
Best Security: A lot of dead ones, Worf (not counting Tasha), Odo, Tuvok, Reed (Odo, surprisingly ;) )
Yeah, shame about Enterprise. It was so good to see all those episodes in Season 4 that lead into the future, Dr. Soong, T’Pau, Klingons etc.
And the Expanse thing was hreat as well. Not to mention (if I have not done so in an exasperating manner yet) when they encountered the Roms ;)