Yeah, that would have been cool, but unfortunately the original ST conflicts with the First Contact movie upon which the series was based as that uses an anti-matter reactor for humanities first warp vessel. Although I know what you mean about the ST:E technology being more advanced, look at the tri-corders as a perfect example
I can't find a good image of Enterprise's tri-corders but they're small hand held devices. I suppose part of it is creating technology that people would feel is future-tech today, which is hard to do while making the shows technology less advances then a show from 40ish years ago. Given the look of the Original ST I can only conclude that people in Kirk's time were either having a "style renascence" or doing way too much acid
The other cool possibility for Enterprise would have been if humanity wasn't evolved into the "federation" mindset, when I first heard it was to be set in a time before the prime directive I hoped it might be about humans being a little more evil and the repercussions thereof.
It's too bad Paramount has said it's not going to do anything more with the star trek series, I think it still has a lot of room to grow.
I really like the episode where Archer is trapped in the suliban prison camp and helps them escape, not because of the episode itself, but because it has Al from Quantum Leap in it.
