CC22!
Where's your Reliant!? The way I see it is this: The Kelvin's design is also part of the "Prime" universe, since if you give it a coat of thermal paint I imagine it would look very much like the Pre-TOS designs floating about. From what I've seen the Kelvin is much, much closer to TOS than Enterprise was. From the Props to the shuttles to the arrangement of the registry on the underside of the saucer. Heck, when I saw the scene of a guy getting sucked out into space and bounce off one of the phaser turrets, it reminded me of the boiler diagram Scotty was looking at. Maybe a precursor?
But the destruction of the Kelvin (presumably a starfleet workhorse) meant paranoia for the Federation and they had to advance many programs. What would have been the Constitution as we 'knew' it was advanced to something like a TMP hybrid. I mean, if you look at kitbashes of the
"Kelvinprise", it looks much more similar to the original than what we ended up with. Had Nero not appeared, development might have smoothly transitioned into what we knew as TOS. The architecture about the Kelvin suggests as much.
I saw what looked like four and three-nacelled versions of what might have been Kelvin kitbashes... I won't know until I see the movie next
or until the DVD comes out, or photos bob up on the internet. I'm just happy that we got more Federation ships in this 'brave new world', and for once Enterprise wasn't "the only ship in the quadrant"