I like having the broad security settings because friends of friends often post very insightful things, but I hadn't given thought to people like you who might want to avoid casting pearls before swine.
If I become a centrist because the Overton window moves while I stay the same, we're going to be living in a really weird land of anarchosyndicalism, това́рищ.
I really dislike that show. But I keep watching. A lot of Lorca's backstory doesn't make sense right now--why/how did he survive his ship being destroyed?--but he's one of the better written characters. And his actor can act. I just don't like most of the other characters. They're one-dimensional, which works just fine in the theatrical way TNG is set up but feels artificial in the more modern writing style of ST: D.
The more the show goes on, the more I think most of my problems with it would evaporate if they had just set it after Voyager. You could have a Federation still enormously weakened by the Dominion war, massive destabilization caused by the supernova that destroyed Romulus, and susceptible to deviation from its more noble ideals. That would nicely follow some of the moral explorations of DS9. Instead, we've got this really awful incongruity between TOS and ST: D. I feel like ST: D is sort of to TOS like The Magicians was to Harry Potter--prettier, and arguably more realistic, but grim and dark and generally unpleasant without any real payoff for that darkness.
Plus: setting it after the destruction of Romulus = cute Romulan crewmembers.
And definitely yes to this story taking place post-DS9/Voyager. It could still be the same good story with a new enemy. The fight between scientific ideals and military aims. What it means to be this utopian ideal when faced with an enemy intent on annihilating you. But all the advances in technology/graphics would be logical.
I actually like the Captain the most out of all the characters so far. Just because a flawed individual is more interesting to watch. I wonder, though, if he has found himself a new House Elf.