Hmm… maybe I misremembered the name, or maybe there’s a continuity problem here. 
You could be remembering it right… the Tech Manuals, while written by Michael Okuda, are only considered reference material and are not canon unless something shown on-screen verifies it.
Yeah… I’d still consider it a ‘continuity problem’ (if a slight and unimportant one,) if the manual contradicts all that other stuff. 
For some odd reason, all this has reminded me of the ‘supernova-class warships’ in “Foundation’s edge.” Taking the differences between the series into account as well as possible, those seem to kick the tar out of most of starfleet.
Especially being able to run them with a crew of, what, 6 people?
Nah. All the Starfleet ships would have to do is reverse the polarity of their shields, cycle their phasers through their warp cores and into the deflector dishes, thus creating anti-nadion pulses and those Supernovas are toast.
Or we could have the captains try to convince them that we… deserveto… LIVE.
Either/or.
Actually, there’s no precendent for any starhip of any kind. Ever. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, space shuttles and the Soviet stuff are all that there’s ever been.
So I guess designating a new class based on a refit is just as legitimate as any other fictional course of action.
Don’t forget China’s Shenzhou-5 and related spacecraft.
Maybe with the advent of privately-owned (hopefully eventually mass-produced) spacecraft, with companies eager to constantly innovate without being able to dump oodles of taxpayer money on an idea, we’ll see some cool stuff in our lifetimes.
Except that in the Trek universe, there’s plenty of precedent for starships since interstellar travel is the basis for the entire franchise and none have ever been named for a refitted ship.
I don’t see your point in trying to limit a show set in the future to technology of the past and present.
In both examples the exerior remained intact. Heck the White House exterior is the original bricks layed down 200 + years ago.
In the case of the Enterprise the entire exterior of the Enterprise was revamped too. I’ll have to check but I believe the damned thing is actually larger than the constitution class from the show.
I guess if they kept the original frame and built around it…
Besides Mr Scott’s guide to the Enterprise refers to the refit as Enterprise Class. Would Scotty Lie? (Yes I know he would exaggerate, but would he lie)
Except that, as Aesiron noted before, there is no such thing as a canon tech manual, including Mr. Scott’s Guide.
Amen to that.
Let’s take a closer look at the Enterprises. Here is another section of my link, showing all the Enterprises together. Compare the original with the “refit”. The newer version has an entirely different geometry, making it a refit in name only. The least different element of the refit is the engineering section, and that’s still a very different shape from the original. I think calling it Enterprise class is justified.
On the other hand, the Enterprise-B is not so significantly different from the Excelsior. This site shows the actual production model used for both ships.
My Chinese is non-existent. Are the Shenzhous the Long March rockets?
Sorry for the delay. Yes, the Shenzhou is a “Long March” rocket. I just figured since the Chinese had managed to put people into orbit, they deserved a cut of the “spacecraft” discussion.
ALL YOUR CLASS ARE BELONG TO US