I'd rather watch "Ow, my balls!"

I can't speak for everyone but if there was no capitalism and I needed for nothing I would seriously just go door to door asking folks if they had any computer/tech problems I could take a look at for them. Can you imagine how absolutely insane O'Brien would go if he had no problems to fix?

That ending was damn near wholesome. Also I think my favorite part of the whole thing was "the pizza is not negotiable."

Instead of money, people look to accomplishments for social status and distraction.

That's basically canon, established in the uhh season 1 finale I think it was? They unfreeze some people from the 21st century and the one rich guy is questioning what the point of it all is if money isn't around anymore.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard: This is the 24th century. Material needs no longer exist.

Ralph Offenhouse: Then what's the challenge?

Captain Jean-Luc Picard: The challenge, Mr. Offenhouse, is to improve yourself. To enrich yourself. Enjoy it.

I'm guessing they also rely on various in-system defenses such as Luna and Mars as well. Utopia Planetia surely has some ships that could be deployed to Earth in hours or maybe even minutes if needed. What kind of crew complement they'd have available is a different story.

Keep in mind also that we only see little snippets of time portrayed in the show. Even individual episodes can have gaps of days or weeks between scenes! The show wouldn't be very exciting if every other episode was just them lazily cruising to their next mission and filling out crew reports or whatever.

Edit: Yeah, I could see planetary life being pretty unfulfilling. Like.. what are you gonna figure out that hasn't already been figured out? Gotta go out into the great unknown to solve a new mystery.

Deep Space 9 showed that runabouts could be operated almost entirely by voice control (Odo was able to pilot one without much difficulty). I'd imagine shuttles would be just as easy or easier to pilot given their more limited equipment loadout.

The crew of a starship can be offered shore leave anytime the ship is docked at a space station or a friendly planet so long as operational requirements allow. Hell, there was an episode where Picard basically forced Riker to take leave along with about half of the crew because they "wouldn't require a full ship's complement" for that mission. So it seems to be almost entirely up to the captain. Individuals (at least from senior staff, not sure about the lower decks) could take personal leave at the captain's discretion as well (worf travelling to his tournament, geordi attempting to attend a symposium on warp fields, etc).

In the episode with the worm parasite things, Picard mentions that it's rare for a deployed starship to return to Earth so maybe their planetary defenses rely on orbital weapons?

This isn't even a conspiracy theory, it's been investigated and found to be mostly true.

https://tboteproject.com/git/hekate/attestation-findings