So? The original Star Trek series did the same thing in the 1960s. I don't see people bashing it because there was no overall "arc" each season and the purpose of the show was "exploring for the sake of exploring". Let's get back to basics of what Star Trek is.
I'm fine with stand-alone, self-contained episodes that take place at an unspecified time after the previous episode, as long as they have a compelling, memorable story. Some of the greatest sci-fi series in history were anthology stories, like The Twilight Zone. To use a more recent example, JJ Abrams own successful sci-fi TV series, Fringe (2008-2013) was mostly "Stand alone" mystery-of-the-week stories.
Again, there is where I'd say the movies and TV version of the franchise should differ. Doing a direct followup on the big screen that furthers what happened in the last film works well. Its been 2-3 years and films are big "event" showpieces, unlike American TV where you get 22+ episodes a season. Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek Into Darkness would have definitely been strengthened by following up and tying into the events of their predecessor film.
Seems to me that Star Trek has gotten it backwards lately:
On television, the 60s & 80s Star Trek worked great as anthology stories, but on film, The Wrath of Khan - The Voyage Home worked great as a tight-knit trilogy that flowed seamlessly from film to film. On the other hand, "stand alone" films since the late 90s, and boring, drawn-out story arcs on TV like the "Xindi war" on Enterprise, really exasperated audiences.
Do not care for those types of stories on TV. You can have it. Continuity is everything in a good theme. Else it is disjointed and disposable - watch once and forget. Didn’t much like the original as was the same thing - only was unique then. Later versions just continued the bad writing.
You obviously didn't watch past the first season. After that, it was all one long story arc, a-la B5.