It’s so bizarre to read this in the present, knowing how incredible TNG was, but I get it - the original crew WAS Star Trek to them.
The dedicated fans revived this series in syndication, well after it had gone off the air in 1969, and felt attached to the characters that they had obsessed over between then and the 1980s. Like modern fans, they thought that departure from what they knew would ruin it.
I wish I could go back in time and tell them that TNG is going to rock.
@The_Picard_Maneuver I knew that depending on the rented reel-print, some pressed cannisters of The Voyage Home included an early-remit trailer for The Next Generation by timing; I have no recollection of whether I saw that preview or not on my birthday at the Palace Theatre on Pape Avenue, north of Danforth Avenue, 36 years ago. I know I eventually saw a transcoded copy on Youtube, sometime probably in the last 15 years.
To be fair, I really liked and like TNG, despite its limits; although in retrospect I think it missed the point: Humanity by then is not perfect, but never wished to be.