Renegades and Tim Russ' movie Of Gods and Men were both top notch, and like Continues had some good acting and writing. I wouldn't admonish ALL fan creations are garbage though. So does New Voyages/Phase II, which has brought back so many fantastic Trek veteran actors and crew members. I personally LOVED the return of Walter Koenig and George Takei, who are good actors that rarely got to "act" on TOS.
As for casting, Info you should give Edward Burns' book Independent Ed a read! He's the master of indies, and you really get a sense of how difficult putting this stuff together is. They cast themselves because casting pro actors has too many issues. Namely, if they get a job, they're out. If they are SAG-AFTRA, they probably won't do the project for very long. I would agree though focusing on TOS cast has gotten out of hand, but nowadays only Continues/Phase II are really still doing this.
Paramount (aka JJ Abrams and co.) don't really care about all of this. They've rebooted and moved FAR away from the Trek I grew up with. This is about CBS, and don't forget that until a few years ago CBS had ZERO ownership of Star Trek. It was always Paramount/Viacom for decades and decades, and they were fine with most anything the fans did. CBS though is not. They took ownership IMO in a shitty way, being given the "TV side" for really no good reason, in the Viacom/CBS de-merger. CBS is starting this new service and a the new Fuller series. Clearly they are somehow feeling the fan stuff endangers their new property, which frankly is hilarious but whatever. Network television is garbage, run by legacy idiots who get jobs because of who their daddies are.
