While I love TNG (even though the cast can’t shut up) and that was the first Star Trek I was familiar with since I was 6 and a fan of reading rainbow when it came out I would say that the original series is my favorite (can happily watch Trek through Enterprise). My dad watched Original Series reruns since as long as I can remember.
The sendoff for the original crew always gets to to me and it just contrast that with writers today who live to crap on or deconstruct the works of better writers. I saw they are making a new blade runner with a delusional man, Disney is making a new Neverending Story, and Netflix is butchering… I mean remaking the Chronicles of Narnia.
One good thing about Star Trek is that I have a lot of books to read. I was at a convention once and a guy had a bunch of Star Trek books for a quarter a piece so I left with a bunch.
It probably fell by the wayside because it conflicts with the "Earthlings don't use money" concept.
There was also that bit in TNG where Riker was rubbing superior human morality in the face of a vaguely lupinish alien who was bitching about the replicated food, and then in Picard he's bragging about killing critters to make pizza with. Another case of "it's OK if it's humans doing it, but if something beastly does it, it's evil".