You seem to dislike Rick Berman. Based on what I can glean from fandom (I showed up at this party 20 years late), I strongly suspect he's the driving force behind everything that infuriated me about DS9, but I have no actual evidence to support that. Care to do a brief primer on Why Berman Sucks?

DO I EVER. you’ve come to the right place. so. ultimately berman spent the majority of his time with star trek being utterly regressive in all of his attitudes (ironically, considering he produced a franchise that’s literally all about a diverse utopian future) to the detriment of the actors and writers. some examples that make me want to fistfight him behind a 7-11 at dusk:

1. his treatment of terry farrell. she’s spoken many times about berman’s misogyny, how his major concern when it came to jadzia was whether she was attractive enough (he was the driving force behind the trill redesign iirc, because he thought the tng forehead ridges made her look ugly, which, come on, it’s terry farrell, how could she ever look ugly). AND he’s the reason she was killed off at the end of season 6 of ds9. farrell had asked to be in fewer episodes and berman’s response was essentially “you do all of them or none of them.” so instead of rationally negotiating with an employee he more or less fired her and forced the writers (none of whom were happy about this) to account for the sudden loss of a beloved character, which is imo why season 7 has a weird tone at times

2. his treatment of garrett wang. berman had a very weird and petty dislike of garrett wang from his first appearance on voyager, to the extent that he wanted harry killed off midway through the show. what saved wang’s job? the attention he garnered by being named one of people magazine’s most beautiful people of 1997. berman kept him on, but he made it clear that he wasn’t happy about it. wang repeatedly expressed interest in directing an episode of voyager, but lo and behold he’s one of the only cast members who expressed such an interest and who was always denied. here’s some more of wang’s take on berman. essentially we have berman to blame for the fact that the asian crew member who’s frequently written as a bit of a stereotype is never promoted past the lowest commissioned rank.

3. his homophobia. we have berman to thank for why there are apparently no openly gay people in the future, and for why the writers (of tng in particular) were prevented from addressing lgbt+ issues even behind the veil of that patented form of Solemn Trek Allegory. berman was so homophobic that everyone knew it. it was just a known quality the cast and crew had to work around. hear that? that bubbling sound? that’s my blood boiling.

anyway, there are a lot more examples of why rick berman sucks. i highly recommend the fifty-year mission for a few eloquent berman takedowns (and his very defensive responses), or anything the reigning king and queen of dragging berman (garrett wang and jeri ryan) have said on the subject. tl;dr rick berman is the reason why we couldn’t have bold unbridled social commentary in many, many, many episodes of trek.