Per Wiki:
Voyager’s producers reluctantly fired Lien after her personal issues affected her reliability on set. At the time, this was not openly discussed and her departure was attributed to other reasons; these ranged from Lien voluntarily leaving to pursue other roles to her being removed to make room for Jeri Ryan’s introduction as Seven of Nine.
I re-watched Voyager a while ago and realized that I hadn’t noticed the first time around that the first part of the show was the Kess show and the second part was the Seven show. Most of the episodes were about them.
It’s just too bad Kes wasn’t a very compelling character. Seven, on the other hand, allowed for interesting writing alongside Jeri Ryan’s superior acting prowess.
Agreed.
Let’s not forget the time writers asked the question should a 1-year-old be forced to have children?