Honestly the kinda-sorta meta narrative behind the Enterprise D's shopping mall/white collar cul de sac schtick is something I am fine with.
In the context of the Federation growing complacent in its nigh hegemony after the TOS days due to its alliance with its biggest rival the Klingons now being firm allies, the Romulans going quiet for over a century and staying out of their way, the rapid advance of technology, and the general mapping out of most of the unknowns in that quadrant of the galaxy it works to suggest that having seemingly having run out of big nasty threats, the very nature of the federation has begun to grow soft, decadent, and even stagnant.
Accordingly military standards and discipline and technology became ever more sneered at by those at all levels of starfleet command and likely federation society who at best saw such things us unnecessary reminders of an inferior past, if not dangerous risks to the long peace they had all so enjoyed. This is why they happily signed away their right to build cloaking devices, why they happily let the cardassians off without consequence after launching unprovoked war against them and murdering civilians, and why their on-paper warships steadily became little more than a mishmash of scientific vessels, mobile cultural exchange stations, diplomatic cruisers, and straight up cargo haulers
This is why in seasons 1 and 2 of TNG you have the cast acting like such insufferably arrogant dicks about how smelly and stupid and pointless war and those who fight it are, and how they are strong enough to not need to prove themselves to lesser powers or prepare for contact with equal or greater powers.
Cue Q, Cue Cube
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4ztPt3tHXhY
In the episodes after the galaxy's worst field trip until Janeway got her comission, there seems to be a little less snobbery in regards to starfleet's role as the one and only military force the federation has in the wake of the whole "insanely powerful army of assimliationist cyborgs making a beeline for the federation" thing, though Picard and friends still bristle at having to perform military excercises on starfleet orders towards the end of that same season, and by season 3 the enterprise is now regularly on war footing due to the resurgent romulans, but this aint enough to prepare them or star fleet for when the borg finally arrived.
After The Best of Both Worlds you see the old military structure rapidly re emerge in future episodes and later trek shows as the number of existential threats to the Federation start to grow almost exponentially, though the enterprise would keep the 80s mall shit going until they gave Councillor Troi the driving seat for long enough to crash it into a planet.