

The producers knew they were going to fire someone. At point, it was Garrett Wang (Ensign Kim), but he ended up on a TV Guide top 100 hottest people on TV list.
My guess is that the producers picked Jennifer Lien (Kes) because they were already getting better eye candy already, the writers seemed to be having problems writing for Kes, and it was kind of awkward to have Starfleet officers hitting on a nine year old.










As an engineer, a lot of engineers do a lot of dumb stuff.
Part of it is that a lot of engineers don’t think through the implications of their design. Part of it is that a lot of engineers coast by on the equivalent of copying other people’s code. Part of it is that budgets for projects are so compressed that you need a high performer to get it done on budget and getting that high performer in this case isn’t always viable. Part of it is that you need someone smart enough to do the job and dumb enough to not go for a higher pay position in another field.