I think TOS did a better job giving the communications officer something to do. Mostly because in the 60s they thought space telephones would need operators, but still. Enterprise’s innovation of making the comms officer a linguist was very clever, and I think it’s a great way to give Hoshi more to do. But I don’t think Hoshi is portrayed as performing the essential functions Uhura does, which make Uhura very important to the essential functioning of the Enterprise. Hoshi just presses buttons until the universal translator starts working, and then she’s useless. I think that’s a big failure of writing. Strange New Worlds was making this mistake too, right up until Subspace Rhapsody which stepped the portrayal of Uhura way up by showing us that Uhura has the telephone operator chops to run comms for the whole ship, and that she is indeed a part of all communications. I like the balance that SNW is striking for Uhura as of 2023, and I hope they keep that coming into the future. Because Uhura’s job in TOS was very important and it remains important even with TNG style commbadges. There’s a reason the Enterprise of the 60s feels more organised and professional than all later ships, and I think the comms officer is the biggest reason why. Kirk has the ideas, and Uhura gets everyone on the ship on his page. Contrast that with the chaos you see in TNG, which is dialed up to 11 in LDS, and you see the vital importance of the comms officer. Nobody tells lower deckers what’s going on, because they forgot to replace Uhura.