First Flight

It would have been far more impactful if AG had given up his career in order to prove that the engine worked. First, we don't need AG to break the rules to have a failure that ends the program. Any failure could cause the ship to be lost and the Vulcans to force an end to the program. The team is determined to break orders and fly the craft. Archer wants to fly it but because it means certain dismissal from Star Fleet, AG demands to take the flight and is dismissed. Can then have an impactful scene where Forrest thanks AG for saving the program despite having to court marshall him. No reason for Trip to be in this. The engineer and others who helped AG to launch the forbidden flight should all have sacrificed their careers for the NX program.

Wouldn't this heighten the sense of loss? Forrest and Archer just lost the man who saved their NX careers.

Earlier opportunities for more impact:

The flashback starts with Archer saying that he was in the NX test program to try to break the warp 2 barrier but there's not even a fleeting mention of the current state of Star Fleet. Do they have 1 or 100 warp 1.9 ships? They're frustrated by the time it takes to go somewhere? All we have is perhaps a mention of needing higher warp to reach deep space.

A perfect opportunity would have been to show how long it would take for AG to return to earth. Warp factors label a cubic increase. Warp 1 is the speed of light, warp 2 is 8x, warp 3, is 27x, etc.

A simple comment that the trip back in their fastest ship took x times longer even though he spent less than a minute above warp 2 would provide concrete context to the importance of the the NX program.

Why did they have AG escape in an escape pod? There was no time for him to do that (and the pod was pathetically small and thin). Surely the entire pilot's cabin would be jettisoned. The plot needed a large cabin with two seats so that, in the later flight, AG could give the pilot's seat to Archer. Using a smaller cabin, but that exchange could have happened outside the ship, when boarding, with perhaps even greater effect.

I believe that many Enterprise episodes could have been much better without costing more.