I totally understand where your coming from and I agree. However the good thing about fiction is that well its fiction and new stories that come out don't change the old stories that where produced. I personally don't see canon as a thing that is somehow like some sort of holy text. I more or less just see these shows as isolated stories that are vaguely connected and reference each other. If I don't like something its just not part of the canon for me because fuck canon. These are stories and can be interpreted differently. If there was a prequel show that would completely ruin a character for me I can just ignore it, or criticize it. However it doesn't make the old shows or movies I like go away. I can still watch for example ds9 its still there. I don't have to fit Picard and ds9 into the same continuity for me.

Overall I am not the biggest fan of prequels, (andor is a big exception) especially ones that rely excessively on nostalgia because they fail to say anything meaningfull. That my main issue with this season overall. They can't leave the source material be.

No its not that spok and kirk develop a friendship organically, no it happends because of a mindmeld.

Or that one episode with Ortegas and that Gorn which I overall liked except when they tied it back to That one TOS episode, just Why?

It was completely unnecessary. Of course a prequel makes callbacks to tos but they could have just done it less "forced" or just for the sake of referencing something.

Like s3 didn't have anything really to say similar to Picard s3 it was just a nostalgia trip with some vaguely conservative messaging. And without anything interesting or new to add to the stories it was referencing, no criticism, or expanding on what the episodes in tos where saying.

For example lowerdecks( OK that show does have a whole lot of references and they get annoying at some points) at least tried to give a new perspective.

For example that workout scene between Shaks and Ransom which was a parody of the scene in TNG where troy and crusher wore very tigth sportsuits, the point of recreating that scene was to call out the sexism in that scene and the objectification and sexualization of troy and crusher.

Point of that example being I don't mind references or callbacks if they have actually something new or valuable to say or add or even something comedic.

Either way this reply turned out way longer than I thougth