[horatio]

I prefer the way they showed the private lifes of the seven in the old movies without putting them all in one room, be it via shore leave on TFF, Scotty sitting over his beloved Enterprise plans during a break and Spock being in his quarter in TUC and so on. It was always done naturally whereas in TOS it often felt forced to have everybody gathered in the rec room.
In The Cage there is a great shot where you see two people walking barefoot (thus showing that The Rodd had the idea to make the ship a comfortable and cozy place since the very beginning around with civilian clothes on and some plants in the background. It worked so well because it was literally done en passant, while Pike passed them. Atmosphere should always be created via the background.