Disagree with Will Riker carrying a show as lead. He was a putz who went out of his way to sabotage his own career. Turning down multiple commands, even Picard told him that the Enterprise would go on without him (hardly indispensable). It took Riker, what twelve years to finally take command of his own ship?
Starfleet doesn't work like the modern military. It is a paramilitary organization with a military-esque rank hierarchy for the usual organizational reasons. That has been more enforced in times of conflict (as with the Klingons or the Dominion War) and less enforced in times of peace (like the time in the 2350s and '60s, prior to the Borg and Dominion and such). They don't have the same "up or out" policy, and it's fine for officers to languish in a billet where they're happy and doing a good job for a lot longer than real-world conventions would lead us to expect. To quote myself in another thread:
It's easy for me to extrapolate [...] about 5,000 or so active vessels in Starfleet circa 2375, including non-combatants and those being repaired. Out of those, there are nine Galaxy class starships, and only the best of the best get there. This also doesn't include non-Starfleet "civilian" ships flagged to one or another member system. I imagine there are all levels of aspiration and ambition amongst 24th-century folks (human and non), and many are content hauling cargo, many are content getting whatever billet will let them study nebulae or pulsars or what have you. Comparatively few might even be interested in trying to get onto a deep-space Explorer that can, should the mission dictate, head out away from known space for a good fifteen years at a stretch.
Picard did something between the loss of the Stargazer and when we first meet him in "Encounter at Farpoint" to give him a lot of clout, enough to get the new Enterprise and handpick his command crew. They offered him a promotion to the Admiralty and the position of Commandant of Starfleet Academy that same year. Riker had been offered his first command when he was still a Lieutenant Commander (probably the rank Picard was when he had to take the bridge of the Stargazer, by the way), and he'd only been a full Commander and on the Enterprise for about a year and a half when they made their second offer. It was only when they made their third offer another year and a half after that that he was in someone's way on the Enterprise for the first time. And Shelby's ambition was out of the ordinary, as Hanson commented on it and both Riker and Picard were rocked back by it. I get the feeling for those top-of-the-line ships, you have to really want it to get there.
But the crisis passed, Picard was retrieved, Shelby went elsewhere, and Riker was able to hang out where he was unmolested for another five years before the
Enterprise-D was destroyed (the ship he
wanted), and then two or three years after that he got the
Titan. I'm guessing he let Starfleet Command know that with the
Enterprise-D gone he was once again on the Command track.
Even an Admiral of Starfleet sent another Captain to run Enterprise (Jellico) when Picard got captured by the Cardasians, despite Riker's protest. Clearly Shelby had what it takes to be a Captain, arguably more so than Riker.
*shakes head* Nope. Jellico was brought in when Picard was reassigned, both occurrences part of the same thing Starfleet Command had going. Picard and his strike team were still on the
Enterprise training/prepping while Jellico was in command. And
he was brought in because of his track record in dealing with the Cardassians, which Riker just didn't have, and which Starfleet expected to be needed before the crisis point had passed.
I'm sorry, but if Picard would have been killed off as a Borg, or was used only as a recurring Borg villain, I hardly doubt Riker could have carried the series onward. Even Chipotle (yes, I'll allow autocorrect to keep this spelling) from Voyager would have made a more interesting Commander to follow despite his lack of character development.
I think both Chakotay and Riker would be interesting Captains. We see enough of Riker's command style in "Peak Performance", "Best of Both Worlds", "Future Imperfect", and "All Good Things..." that I feel a show around him would feel a lot like TOS -- a confident and laid-back Captain who has a good and friendly rapport with his command crew and always has time for the needs of his crew. Chakotay would be a bit more Picard-like, but with a wry sense of humor that sneaks out from time to time, and he'd be possibly a little heavier on the compassion than Riker. *shrug* Ultimately, it all comes down to writing. They could both be well-written, they could both be badly-written.
--Jonah