Janeway takes Torres under her wing a bit too, and talk shop often. I think the rise is almost exclusively due to the Captain being a woman and having at least a single head of staff be another woman means any episode the captain has to consult that character means it will pass. The 7 bit is just gravy filling in episodes that isn’t the case.
I tried to go back and watch it as part of a kind of personal nerd pilgrimage. I just couldn’t get through it to save my life. Then I hit the beginning of TNG and was shocked, that was not what I remembered at all from all the reruns I saw growing up. I’m honestly still kind of shocked it lasted long enough to grow the beard.
I mean, she wasn’t jiggling. Carrie had often complained about how tightly bound she was, he specifically didn’t want that look either. Nothing at all in that outfit would have honestly made a huge difference in how the whole thing felt I think, at least in hindsight it would really cheapen it.