Ah yes, this is getting interesting. And entertaining. It's actually a change of pace to discuss something as meaningless as a TV show instead of the heavy topic of politics. That being said, I have to put in two additional cents on Zippy's comments.
If the Sphere-Builders made the microbes and ordered the Reptilians to specifically assassinate Archer, hence the boarding party, then that's what might be called a major plot point. If this is, in fact, the premise behind the boarding party, then the fact that the writers left it out of the episode points to an even worse error on the part of the episode's writers than the extraneous use of a tactically unnecessary boarding action. Tactically speaking, the Reptilians should have blown the Enterprise out of space and be done with it. And if they're worried about people escaping--well, any society with the technological prowess to design and deploy a planet-buster should be able to target and eliminate any escaping life pods and shuttlecraft at point blank range. "Twilight" was just a poorly written episode all around--even more poorly written than "Zero Hour." However, I do have to give it points for showing that T'Pol can look hot in a Starfleet uniform.
There is an even worse plot hole with "Twilight," however. Destroying the microbes "hit the reset button," so to speak, because they existed simultaneously at all times throughout that particular timeline. Destroying them effectively eliminated them from history as if they never even existed, which reset the timeline back to the time of Archer's initial infection (the show's "present day"). If that's the case, then how in the hell could Phlox and T'Pol remember that the first treatment worked? They remembered the fact that the scans taken throughout the time period of Archer's infection, even those in the past, showed fewer microbes after the treatment. They shouldn't have remembered that because, for all intents and purposes, those microbes "never existed" for the same reason the total elimination of said microbes "reset the timeline." Phlox would have chalked up the unchanged number of microbes--from his perspective--to failure and went to work on discovering another procedure, totally oblivious that it had worked.
To set the record straight, I have nothing against boarding parties per se. As long as there is a tactically viable reason for doing so. Boarding actions in the naval battles during the days of sail were good ways to capture enemy ships to add to your own fleet.
Through most of the Stargate SG-1 series the only means Stargate Command had available to even dent a Goauld facility was via Stargate infiltration. Their tactical options were limited by technology. The Star Trek universe, even as depicted in ST:E, has no such limitation. They can warp spacetime to travel to other stars, for God's sake, you mean to tell me they don't have the technological know-how to mount a crap-load of high-yield warheads on twenty-century-era rocketry to deliver a crap-load of firepower against the incoming Xindi Death Asteroid before it gets anywhere close to Earth's orbit? There's a lot of land on Earth to mount ground-based weapons, and they had a friggin' year to prepare. The episode before "Zero Hour" already showed that the Death Asteroid could be harmed by external firepower when it was attacked by those big Xindi-Aquatic motherhumpers.
And where were all of Starfleet's ships? "Twilight" and other episodes showed that they had several--enough for a convoy to protect the refugee ships. Intrepid and Saratoga were mentioned by name in a couple of episodes. And then there was Columbia (NX-02), which at the end of last season looked fairly close to having her hull completed. It shouldn't take longer than a year for a shipyard to outfit her machinery when Archer and company were able to build and install Enterprise's phase cannons on the fly in season one, particularly if the yardworkers knew they had to get Columbia operational before the Xindi came back with a weapon even bigger than the one that carved up the Caribbean.
Yet, all they had to defend themselves after a year's preparation was absolutely nothing. Earth was devoid of any defenses for one reason only: to give the writers a reason to put Archer and company on the Death Asteroid to destroy it from the inside. As a reviewer pointed out, Earth's leaders should be ousted for gross incompetence. Then again, maybe it was the UN running things, which would explain why Earth had zip, zero, nada in the way of defenses, and they put their eggs in one fragile basket when they sent Enterprise into the Delphic Expanse alone.
Another sign of the incompetence of both Starfleet and Earth's leaders. Enterprise's mission never should have been search-and-destroy. She was one ship going up against an entire society that could design a planet-busting superweapon. It should have been a recon mission only. They obtained the plans for the Death Asteroid when they infiltrated the Aquatic world aboard that Insectoid shuttle. They should have pulled a Princess Leia and took the intelligence back to Earth so that they could mount a proper defense with all available assets instead of attempt that foolhardy suicide mission that Archer attempted. The story wouldn't have had to sacrifice action and excitement in implementing a recon role for Enterprise. Suspense can be created by putting obstacles in their way as they attempted to leave the Delphic Expanse with the plans in R2-D2's…I mean the ship's memory. Would they get back to Earth with the critical information before the Xindi deployed the weapon? Tune in next week.