With regards to number 2 I had often wondered just what the big deal was about returning someone to pre-Borg state. I think we can see the allegory of addiction coming into play in these scenarios as well. It's much easier for someone to "kick" being a Borg if they've only spent a little bit in the collective. The longer you spend in the collective the more of a psychological impact it has and therefore the trauma makes reversion to the pre-Borg state more challenging at the individual level.

I think this is a challenging one sense ostensibly we learn that Tellarites had generation ships before achieving warp capabilities and that these generation ships went at least as far as the Delta Quadrant. I don't know that we can so safely assume that Jankom Pog is representative of Tellarites in the Federation.

We do not know when the UEF was formed. It could be a relatively new initiative having taken longer to get started without the help of the Vulcans. The USS Iowa is a United States Starship whereas the UEF Enterprise is the United Earth Fleet ship. Sometime between Kirk's birth and the 'present' Earth was finally able to form a central government (or at least a centrally organized spacefleet) under one banner.

I think we can also say that Starfleet (or the Federation) is better while still allowing the stories to be allegorical and topical. I mean, it was unfair that Richard Bashir went to jail for genetic tampering because it's a bad law, but 2 years on in a Federation prison is just not quite the same as what we have now.

But, to that end, Starfleet has always looked a little bit like this. They tried to treat Data as property. They tried to do racism against Crewman Tarses. And imperfect officers break the rules and sometimes forge evidence to sway a Romulan senator - or murder them.

Allowing for that nuance is interesting - and holding Starfleet to a higher standard also lets us understand where we as regular people need to be held to higher standards. I would love to break canon by doing prison abolition before global catastrophe.

This may also be a commentary on modern policing in America where the vast majority of those accused of crimes are never given an opportunity to plead their case because they can choose to plea down to a lesser offense and avoid jail or risk a trial that might risk 20 years. It sucks though.

undefined> Zipping around the battlefield has virtually no tactical advantage.

This is really the correct answer. If you aren't moving at warp, you might as well not be moving for all the good it will do you. If you are moving at warp you're moving in a straight line so quickly that unless the other ship is following you at warp, it doesn't really matter.