It is definitely the nature of the setting, especially in the TNG era. They even covered what it would take to get into Starfleet Academy, which would be the equivalent of trying to get into an official US military academy.
There is also an issue with the scale of Starfleet during that time. Starfleet was depicted as far smaller in TNG than expected or with that came out during DS9. Picard also hints that Starfleet is desperate for skilled crew by the time of Picard.
It is definitely the nature of the setting, especially in the TNG era. They even covered what it would take to get into Starfleet Academy, which would be the equivalent of trying to get into an official US military academy.
There is also an issue with the scale of Starfleet during that time. Starfleet was depicted as far smaller in TNG than expected or with that came out during DS9. Picard also hints that Starfleet is desperate for skilled crew by the time of Picard.
Starfleet was pretty much wiped out at Wolf 359, I guess.