Hey thanks for all of your input, guys. Especially thanks to Shard for having such a discerning eye for starships!
I'd have to say that when you look at each iteration of the Enterprise, you can see a logical evolution in each ship.
I'm writing this from memory but here's what I remember from the Star Trek timeline:
The original Enterprise had a crew compliment of around 400-500 I think. It's original warp nacelles look similar to those of the Phoenix.
After Kirk's 5 year mission, the ship went through 14 months of upgrades which included brand new warp nacelles (which looked stunning) and an extension of the lower part of the ship. As far as I know, the saucer section remained physically unchanged.
After the ship was destroyed over the Genesis Planet, Kirk and company received a new Enterprise after saving Earth from the alien probe. Now it has been theorized that the new Enterprise A could not have been built from scratch and that it was instead a renamed USS Yorktown (I actually can't believe I remember all of this!). Either way, Kirk got his new ship and aside from the inside, the A was identical to its predecessor.
The B was the ship that killed Kirk (or so we thought). It was an Excelsior class starship. It spent its career charting a lot of unknown territory (I think the Beta Quadrant).
Because so little is known about it, I don't have much to say about the C. Aesthetically, it does look like a mini D.
The D was the flagship of the Federation. Being a Galaxy class starship, it was huge. It had a crew compliment of 1012. It was a very family and community oriented starship.
The E was the antithesis of the D in the sense that it was not a family ship. It was a battle ship and it was meant to fight.
One interesting thing I've noticed in the evolution of the Enterprise ships: the neck piece connecting the saucer section to the bottom part has become more and more streamlined. In the original and A, the neck is very pronounced. I've always thought this made the ship very vulnerable. A few direct hits to this section and the saucer section could easily break off from the rest of the ship. The E almost has no neck at all. I think that makes the ship more rigid and solid.
Anyway, I'm just babbling at this point. While I'll make no apologies for my interest in Star Trek, I will say that I don't like it for the characters, but more for the ideology: a future in which humanity comes together and all human beings put aside their petty differences to eradicate all forms of poverty, disease, and violence on Earth.
