Everyone misses Mark Lenard's hotness. He had the perfect craggy/angular face for a Vulcan, especially circa ST III.

THEY HAD TO CRIPPLE PIKE IN BOTH UNIVERSES?

Yah, if they wanted to have more points of correspondence between the reboot and the original, they could have picked something else. On a completely shallow level, Pike inna wheelchair probably isn't even that well remembered from the old series.