Was the ENT-E a step BACK in starship design?

I think you're making some assumptions that may not be true. The Federation had recently been at war with the Cardassians and their relations with the Romulans were still icy cold. Patrolling a neutral zone is hardly the kind of duty a ship with an elementary school in it should receive. But even if nothing bad had happened to a starship for 50 years leading up to TNG, surely the experiences of Enterprise in season one would have convinced Star Fleet to take all the kids off the ship.

You might think so . . . but then you might expect them to take the holodecks out of the ship after a while too . . . maybe they just don't catch on very quickly?

You'd think the experiences of Enterprise in season one would have convinced us to smash our TVs and find something more entertaining, like checking navel lint at Newark Airport security.

Being the MAJOR geeknerd that I am...

If any of you folks have a copy of the Next Gen Tech Manual published by Pocket Books take a look at the "D".

Multiple Phaser Strips (not Banks/Cannons) for complete !Continuous Fire! 360 degree coverage.
Fwd/Aft Photon Launchers.
Saucer Sep (to get the Family away)
Battle Section which was supposed to make Her even more leaner & meaner.

The ONLY reason the Galaxy class wasn't the most kick-ass ship on Screen,

were the writers.

A big walk-in replicator the size of a gymnasium, and we'll use it...as a video game!
What could possibly go wrong!?

I know I'd be doing all kinds of wrong things in there.

Not me.
Have you seen all the glitches in Red Dead Redemption?
Imagine actually being in that, not just playing it onscreen.

You're walking along then suddenly falling from 30 stories in the air.
Your holo-date suddenly turns into a DonkeyWoman.
The file for your holo-date's ... personal anatomy... get's switched with a can-opener's file.

You could wake up with a holographic condom hanging out of your ass.

I uh, have that book.

where do you get the 63%? The E is 40m longer according to this. Wiki backs it up referencing an Okuda book.

Design to retro? Hardly. The E is like HR Geiger's Alien to the D's Creature from the Black Lagoon.

I said something earlier about stopped clocks. It applies to Braga as well. The D was about as dated as the series first season.

I actually liked the Enterprise C better than the D or E.

I remember it being figured from some official pre movie release material.

While 40 meters longer than the Enterprise D, the E only has 24 decks to the Galaxy class D's 42.

And it is far narrower than the Galaxy. Both of which make the ship far smaller overall than the Galaxy class D.

I liked the D actually looking "futuristic" and not just an evolutionary update of the original Enterprise.