Byrnian revisionism! This is clearly the golden age version of the character, where all his powers came from Earth’s lower gravity and the writer of the moment’s whims.
Superman is very fast, but slamming his steel-hard arms into the kid at a speed fast enough to beat the locomotive might not be all that different than just letting the train do its thing.
Yeah, it's thematically appropriate for Star Trek, and a solid episode by just about every other metric. And Star Trek has never exactly been hard sci-fi, so I mostly don't let it bother me.
On the other hand, having lived through the "teach the controversy" nonsense, I do get just a little more bothered when they get evolution wrong than I do when they mess up something else.
It’s a fun, well executed episode. It just happens to be one of those occasions where the Trek writers betray their complete misunderstanding of evolution.
Wesley certainly is annoying for his first couple appearances, but I don’t really think we should hold season 1 against any TNG character. He has good moments later, and The First Duty is a straight up excellent episode.
On the other hand, hobbits aren’t annoying either. They didn’t ask to get roped into all that nonsense. Elves are the annoying ones in LotR.
I’ll show you my tribble if you show me your stalactite.