Yeah in a non-game story I'd of course throw smaller ships into the mix other then DNs and SDs.
As far as keeping the old "legendary" ships knocking around, yeah I used to do that because it was "legendary" and had been through many battles, but it was also always a heart breaker when my Legendary 34th BC squadron got blown to hell by 6 SDs at a warp point battle.
In my newest game I have 1 of every old ship class in orbit of my homeworld in mothballs as a museum and put it as.
"Enterprise Museum" or so on so my most legendary ships (including Saber and Enterprise) are still around except that they are educating the youth of Icara
and their names are carried on with honors by newer warships.
I do admit though my Yu Hing's have one critical flaw in their design, they all have only lvl IV multi-plex trackers and not Vs so hehe in that department I am outdated though so far I've had no problems because of it. Other then that all my ships have the latest technology and size so that I don't end up out of date when fighting.
Yeah if you make Jane the I got lost in the wrong bloody quadrent and gave up half a dozen chances to return home because "it wasn't moral" or whatever as an Admiral you know starfleet is desperate for flag officers lol.....though she made Admiral and Picard didn't BULL HOCK! what did she do that Picard didn't other then stupid stuff that Picard was too smart to do?