The intrpid was a nice development aesthetically of the previous ships, and undoubtedly had a lot to do with the shape of the later Enterprise Sovvy class.
But it is never goign to live down the fact it was commanded by the least believable character in the history of the genre.. A woman who despite havign every mannerism of a pedantic school maam was supposed to be able to not onl argue contemporary invention with Da Vinci but also do everyone of the ship's jobs better than they did....
Belanna was regularly relegated to playing catch up with Janeway's engineering ideas, Tuvok catching up with her tactical.....and please save us from her pathetic attempts at psychology (which apparently worked anyway)
Despite the actress being about as athletic as most viewers grandmothers she was supposed to be able to keep up with chakotay and tuvok, or even outrun them....
When they were marooned on a planet she was the one who came up with the idea to make fire.... not the vulan who had lived in caves or the sec-tac men who mgiht have done survival/ escape evasion courses.... (of course there were a hundred better things to use than hair but then....)
I'm sorry, the ship looked cool but no other single character I can think of has required near the same level of suspension of disbelief as Janeway did and no other character has been less believable as a capable officer commanding as she was....
and no I'm not being sexist against female leads, I thought that was a good idea... I just would have chosen a better actress who just might have been able to carry off at least part of the superwoman impression they were trying to give Janeway
(or better yet argue against her character being so **** genius at everything)
oops... touched a nerve