There's certainly room for a happy medium with serialization. I think we are where we are because people loved DS9, and only liked the fairly overrated S3 of ENT. Yet neither of those were entirely serialized. Only about half of the episodes actually involved the overriding story arc. Out of 24 episodes of ENT S3, ten or eleven actually progress the Xindi story line. The rest were just shit that happened to them while following a lead, or trying to navigate some anomaly. DS9 didn't really become serialized until S5. Until then there had been minor story arcs. You always knew what was going on in the bigger picture, trouble with the Maquis, or rising tensions with the Klingon Empire, but for the most part it was the same episodic TV we were used to seeing. Occasionally a 2 or 3 parter would show up, and those were always good. This is really the best format, I think. And certainly far better than the "24 in space" format that ST has locked onto.