[Ghoulish Delight]

Speaking for myself, a hopeless nitpicker as previously admitted in this thread and demonstrated in countless movie discussions, the time travel gimmick was absolutely instrumental in my enjoyment of the film, more than any reboot without it could have possibly been. It worked for me, it accomplished precisely what Abrams set out to do with it, abruptly, explicitly, and (to be melodramatic about it) viscerally saying, "Don't even bother trying to fit this all in to what you already know."

There have been 40+ years of "consistent" pieces of this universe's storyline presented to its audience. It's hardwired into fans' brains to be beyond picky about it, especially when talking about the original characters. To my mind, a complete reboot, without the time travel schtick to tie it into that 40 year history, would have just left me feeling like it was trying to compete with what we already know for my love and attention. Whereas this way allowed me to accept it as another chapter, still connected to the series and the movies, despite the radical changes it involves. It maintained that link that I've become acustom to in the 25 or so years that I've been a fan. And yet still gave a Star-Trek-plausible (lord knows that in the 40+ years there's plenty of precedent to set the bar of plausibility pretty low) reason to indulge the new elements that he wanted to bring to it.