If not Defiant II, then what?

[Neo]

I know that some people think the addition of a second Defiant at the very tale end of the series was a little contrived.
It lessened the emotional impact of "The Changing Face of Evil" and felt like a use of the old "reset" button.

I think it would have been cool if there was NO Defiant on DS9 at the end, if they could have destroyed the Defiant and made it permanent.

However, that would have left Sisko without a ship during the final battle in WYLB.

Is there any other way the writers could have gotten around this?

Obviously putting Sisko on another ship or on the Rotarran or something wouldn't have worked. And keeping him out of the final battle wouldn't have worked, either.

My suggestion:

Sisko and Crew should have been piloting the Rio Grande during the final battle!

Silly? Absurd? Of course. But, then again, the Rio Grande is the "lucky" run about....And its manuverability would have enabled it to slip effortlessly through the Dominion lines.

 

[Dave]

They could have souped it up (the way they did the station earlier), by adding more powerful Warp coils, photon torpedoes and a cloak!

 

[Shaun]

I agree that the new defiant did lessen the emotional impact of seeing it destroyed but that was a whole episode ago. Anyway I think that them being on a ship of some sort (not a runabout) was important and probably necessary. Due to money, they probably couldn't be bothered modifying or creating a new set just to use for one episode.