Wouldn't it be more correct to say you just wanted another 20XX Battle Network, less outlandish and closer to home?
Perhaps, but different isn't necessarily better. Star Carriers mirrored that of real world mobile phones (and the constant updates every game), but they really aren't anything more than PETs successor.
The real focus was on Brother Bands, which unfortunately has a laughable real world equivalent: Facebook friends. Now I have no idea what kind of laws Japan has around social networking, but here in the states, you are only legally eligible to create a profile when you're 13 and up. For a game that's targeted towards elementary school kids, it doesn't really work to their advantage to use something that is both relatively unknown to the young while also something that is extremely pretentious.
Star Force 2 had Matter Waves, which don't have any real world equivalent. That addition was severely underutilized, imo.
The series' technology already has alien roots. And much like in both classic Rockman AND Battle Network, aliens and ancient civilizations are not unrelated. Remember Duo? The OS of the anti-planet missile? While further exploring the lore, Mu serves as a new source of antagonists after the first game exhausted many extraterrestrial options.
To be fair, I never played BN4 so I don't know about that chapter of the series nor do I really care to defend it (many consider BN4 to be one of the worsts, anyways...).
That being said, just because another series did it doesn't mean it's a good thing, or even okay. I would be critical of that regard for the robot series if I actually cared about the robot series universe, but the reality is that I don't. The robot series appeal is primarily in its in-the-moment gameplay, which emphasizes quick reflexes, pattern recognition, and precision. The X, Zero, and ZX series all rely on X and Zero being these legendary robots whose schematics never made sense to anyone for centuries. I like the robot series for more than just gameplay, but aside from Zero, the world setting never struck me as one of their strong points.
While it may seem like cherry picking, my point is that BN (as a whole), because it had many relevant real world equivalents, the universe was more believable and interesting. SF lacks that, and doesn't really compensate (imo), which as a result garners a much less favorable reaction/impression from me.
As an analogy, BN feels like Pokemon, the emphasis is not on you but the world you're exploring. SF is more like a generic superhero story that simply borrows the technology of BN. You can't really compare SF to Pokemon.