Exactly right. At the beginning of the new film Spock is lowered on a rope into a volcano hanging from a little shuttle. Everyone knows this situation exists f

Exactly right. At the beginning of the new film Spock is lowered on a rope into a volcano hanging from a little shuttle. Everyone knows this situation exists for the immediate drama and for the ramifications further on in the story, not because it's in the least bit plausible (let alone necessary). In the future they couldn't have had a robot deliver the package? Maybe just drop it in with a timer on board? The trouble is that it wouldn't have served the story, and it wouldn't have been Star Trek. Today Star Trek is a brand, a flavour. Maybe once upon a time it was meant to have something to say about our future, but now any reasonable extrapolation would lose the essential character of the property. Hell, maybe Star Trek has never been about the future anyway. I'm sure everyone caught the bit about the morality and legality of extrajudicial killing in the new flick... I'm sure plenty of people would say the series has always been about the present as much as any other time.