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Spoiler: The ship on the ground being built in Iowa as Kirk stares longingly wasn't necessarily the Enterprise. IIRC, they build the prototype of each class of ship on Earth because it's not simply an assembly line type of operation. It could have been the USS Constitution, which was launched in 2244, a year before the Enterprise was built in orbit at the SF Fleet Yards. Kirk was in Starfleet for 3 years.
The black hole essentially negated warp drive as it was warping space the same way a warp drive might, so they needed a more traditional method of propulsion. Also, if you remember from Star Trek Insurrection, ejecting the core and detonating it is the ultimate dues ex machina in the Trek Universe. It can literally do anything you need it to do.
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