My guess would be that fatigues essentially become pointless when the technology to scope a person out using tricorders and sensors is so readily available.
__________________ In case we find ourselves starting to believe all the Anti-American sentiment and negativity, we should remember England 's Prime Minister Tony Blair's words during an interview. When asked by one of his Parliament members why he believes so much in America , he said:
"A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in... And how many want out."
The same reason that phasers looked like ugly remote controllers: Gene Roddenbery didn't want Starfleet to be an overly militaristic military (I know it sounds oxymoronic).
There were many times in TNG that the crew members stated that their ship (despite being the flagship of Starfleet) was not a ship of war but a ship of discovery.
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“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
To be fair, towards the end of DS9 (and in First Contact) the uniforms did change to the black and grey patterns, which were much more practical and hard wearing to reflect Starfleet's readiness to deal with anything combat related.
In the series Enterprise, Archer does take in a squad of Marines during the Xindi war story; they do have fatigues. Though this is before the Federation.
The beard comment is spot-on, that thing grew and Riker's balls shrinked.
Remember in the ep. Deja Q. Q makes a couple of hot women appear on each of Riker's arms as a reward; Riker looks back in disgust and states "I don't need your fantasy women."
Pre-beard Riker would have been all over that shit and given Q the nod to make those two hot bitches appear in his quarters.
He did become a better character once he had the beard, didn't he?
For the new movies - I was pleased at how they handled the old style uniforms, with the extra touches that didn't date them as much. But they have no pockets. Give them Han Solo-type TESB jackets to carry extra things like phasers & communicators, when they go off ship.
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"I'm not smart so much as I am not dumb." - Harlan Ellison