@LexYeen
Hey, at least in the paperback novel I read where they bring Scotty back (again), they then give an excuse to not have to explore the literally hundreds of thousands of planets' worth of space...
By having the sphere start moving towards its sun, which then burns through the world causing unnecessary destruction, only to have huge tractor beams lock onto the star, pull it back inside the sphere, and the entire thing take off at warp speed.
Okay, so it's not a /simple/ excuse.