That’s one beef I have with the Trek universe; everyone has warp drive and similar ships.
Well, I love Trek but it's rather simplistic, the galaxy is essentially an enlarged planet Earth, so it's kinda fitting that the technology level is equalized, everyone trades and spies, so...
I want a version where there are plant people who use no metal; or aquatic people who never found fire.
That's a budget issue. The story was more important than the alien physiology... With nowaday's CG it's going to be easier to do that.
The same way you had 'The Addams Family' and 'The Munsters'...
I want a series that drops all of Trek's history and starts fresh with a new ship. No five fingered aliens. Truly strange creatures. No Vulcans or Klingons, 100% new.
Poul Anderson was an old school science fiction writer of the Heinlein/Asimov era.
He specialized in world building, often starting with a sun and then figuring out what the planets would look like. Once he had a good plaent he'd create the inhabitants.