Ron Moore hated the replicator:
Replicators are the worst thing ever. Destroys storytelling all the time. They mean there’s no value to anything. Nothing has value in the universe if you can just replicate everything, so all that goes away. Nothing is unique; if you break something, you can just make another one. If something breaks on the ship, it’s “Oh, no big deal, Geordi [LaForge] can just go down to engineering and make another doozywhatsit.” Or they go to a planet and that planet needed something: “Oh, hey, let’s make them what they need!” [The writers room] just hated it and tried to forget about it as much as possible.
So if that's the case,why do they continue to use replicators on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where they have a good story reason to not use them?
In "For the Cause" it is revealed the Federation has provided Bajor and planned to provide the Cardassians with industrial sized replicators. The assumption is that the Cardassians don't have replicator technology. That makes sense: the Federation's replicators are one of the 24th century "perfect communism" Roddenberry edicts. If the other powers don't have them it means that their economies still work in a traditional sense.
So when DS9 was first implemented in "Emissary" why did they give the station replicators? (I brought this up during my recent "Emissary" liveblogging event). If they had used food dispensers specifically then it puts Cardassian technology on-par with the TOS Entrprise which had a food dispenser in the transporter room. You still get to show people eating foods from around the universe but in a way that doesn't include the replicator. Starfleet could maybe install a couple food replicators in their areas but the general population is still using a lesser technology. This means that Quark's bar, Garak's tailor shop, the Bajoran Jumja stick vendor, etc. all make sense without additional suspenses of disbelief.
I understand that Moore wasn't even involved in the show at the time: his first teleplay for DS9 was "The Search" in the third season and his first actual story was "Defiant". However Robert Hewitt Wolfe was with the show from the beginning, and presumably he was part of the writers room that "hated it".
Well you had your chance to fix it. And you blew it.
Oh by the way while we're on the topic, in TNG Season 1 the holodeck was treated as this amazing invention that blew the minds of Picard and Riker and many other castmembers when they first used it. Holodecks use holographic and replication technology. In other words, shouldn't a Cardassian mining station emphatically not have them? The holosuites were originally considered to be brothels, and for much of the first two seasons DS9 didn't treat them as actual holodecks (I think "Blood Oath" was the first use of the inside of a holosuite). Wouldn't it have similarly made more sense for them to be more primitive than TNG holodecks, perhaps more closely resembling Star Wars or Diana Powers on the "Robocop" TV show?
