I've grappled with this over the last couple days, ever since having a discussion with a fellow of my acquaintance along these lines.
I think the reason I think Defiant was my favourite of all the TV Trek ships is because it's the one that I felt captured most perfectly, inside and out, what a lot of ships in an actual real-life Starfleet would actually be like.
Defiant's a "tough little ship". It's got all the sleekness of larger Starfleet ships, but with a design that feels more realistic to me: less decks, less in the way of turbolifts, crew quarters that are barely adequate with multiple bunks, etc. It's the submarine type of Starfleet ship. And there's just something about that I find more believable in design.
Not to disparage the larger ships by any means. Their designs are fine. But I do think in a real-life Starfleet, your Constitutions, Excelsiors, Galaxies and Sovereigns would all be larger ships with a specialist mission statement. Constitutions and Excelsiors would maybe be more like aircraft carriers, larger vessels from which smaller ones would deploy, while Galaxies and Sovereigns would be destroyers. I think in a 'real' Starfleet it'd be almost the exact opposite of what we were presented with on-screen: the larger ships would be used for specific tasks, rather than being the "broad mission" type ships that we actually saw; and I honestly believe that the general runabout would be more like the Defiant (or maybe the Intrepid class).
Defiant's submarine feel is, apart perhaps from ENT's warp five vessel, the Starfleet ship from which I can positively believe in the design as a day-to-day vessel. It feels like a much more real extrapolation of our current days technologies and navy's than perhaps the other Star Treks, which tended to have a more romantic "18th century English navy" base to them.
Am I making any sense, or am I just speaking from the heart?
Anyone else here feel the same way about Defiant as I do? 
I think the reason I think Defiant was my favourite of all the TV Trek ships is because it's the one that I felt captured most perfectly, inside and out, what a lot of ships in an actual real-life Starfleet would actually be like.
Defiant's a "tough little ship". It's got all the sleekness of larger Starfleet ships, but with a design that feels more realistic to me: less decks, less in the way of turbolifts, crew quarters that are barely adequate with multiple bunks, etc. It's the submarine type of Starfleet ship. And there's just something about that I find more believable in design.
Not to disparage the larger ships by any means. Their designs are fine. But I do think in a real-life Starfleet, your Constitutions, Excelsiors, Galaxies and Sovereigns would all be larger ships with a specialist mission statement. Constitutions and Excelsiors would maybe be more like aircraft carriers, larger vessels from which smaller ones would deploy, while Galaxies and Sovereigns would be destroyers. I think in a 'real' Starfleet it'd be almost the exact opposite of what we were presented with on-screen: the larger ships would be used for specific tasks, rather than being the "broad mission" type ships that we actually saw; and I honestly believe that the general runabout would be more like the Defiant (or maybe the Intrepid class).
Defiant's submarine feel is, apart perhaps from ENT's warp five vessel, the Starfleet ship from which I can positively believe in the design as a day-to-day vessel. It feels like a much more real extrapolation of our current days technologies and navy's than perhaps the other Star Treks, which tended to have a more romantic "18th century English navy" base to them.
Am I making any sense, or am I just speaking from the heart?
Anyone else here feel the same way about Defiant as I do? 
