The thing that redeems a new trek show, which has traditionally always been about doing new and interesting things within the values of the franchise IMO …
is the longish cameo of essentially rebooted characters that in many people’s view salvaged the franchise through their own successful spin off. Where, in my view, despite liking SNW a lot, it’s biggest problem as a contribution to the franchise is that it’s very close to being a reboot of TOS^1^ (though it’s not quite there yet and I hope it stays away) … which means we’re talking about a prequel giving birth to another prequel that verges on a reboot.
All of that, for me, connects Discovery+SNW to the JJ/Kelvin legacy of what new and compelling Trek has to look like in a way that feels very distant from the legacies and approaches of TOS/TNG/DS9.
Since and including the finale of season 1, either Kirk or Scotty have played major non-cameo roles in a majority of SNW episodes while taking air time from the other SNW characters. For me, this is unnecessary and is clearly toying with TOS reboot/prequel territory, while the interesting promise of SNW was to simply continue from the first pilot, doing what is technically a prequel but really filling in a missing gap of TOS era trek with its own premise and characters and so allowing a re-imagining of TOS trek without reverting to old (and tired IMO) characters.