Well, as I've observed before (when discussing Star Wars Armada), I don't think the original creators of these franchises ever envisioned a bunch of people sitting around a table using small models of their spaceships to conduct tactical maneuvers. I think they probably just went with "hey this looks cool" and that was that. Hence the MASSIVE size difference between the original Constitution-class and the later Galaxy class (almost double the size)...isn't technology supposed to get smaller as it becomes more advanced??