I know this is how people in the 80s and 90 imagined the future and a lot of concepts were probably too far fetched for them.
BUT... why arent they using drones to explore planets? why are there not more drone-spaceships? why does enterprise need a crew to begin with? Why is there so little automation? Why so few uses of AI in general?
I am saying this as a star trek the next generation person. I'd also expect them to have full video and sensory streams of any surface mission teams.
Too right, exposure to those kind of ideas has grown over time, and thus given the modern era the ability to take those ideas mainstream, because of the simple breadth of media available. We often take it for granted that even a hundred years ago, it wasn't super easy to get a hold of books, let alone catch every film release. Now a near infinite stream of media is literally available at people's fingertips. The speed and amount of media that exist has contributed heavily to a more informed modern audience that can digest these ideas more easily, because they've simply been exposed to more media explaining the basics underlying such ideas.