Why is nearly every Admiral in the Next Gen era a Vice Admiral (at least according to their rank insignia)? In the pictures of Admirals in the Fact Files only two out of 19 do not have the Vice Admiral insignia (they have 2-pip Rear Admiral ones). Even the "Fleet Admirals" (Brackett and Shanthi) have Vice Admiral insignia. Did someone at Starfleet HQ accidentally replicate a million 3-pip insignias and they are being given to everyone regardless of actual rank?

How many Admirals ARE there in Starfleet to begin with?

This is partly from memory, partly supposition ...

In the 24th century, there are rear admirals (either one or two divisions), vice admirals, full admirals and fleet admirals.

In the 23rd century, there were commodores (supposedly in the place of one-star rear admirals), rear admirals, vice admirals and full admirals.

The 23rd century also had the rank of fleet captain, supposedly between captain and commodore, but it also might have been considered a flag-officer rank.

Star Trek appears to have dropped the rank of commodore about the same time that the U.S. Navy did. Commodores existed in the 1960s during the original series, but were phased out by the time of the movies and TNG.

And in the 22nd century, there's only one admiral.

Presumably the old-fashioned Commodores were replaced by the more advanced Atari STs.

You mean Amigas!

Oh no - Amigas were Commodores in their own right - only newer. Ataris trounced on them from high, IMHO.

Commodore has since been replaced with the rank of read admiral (lower half). It still remains as a courtesy title, though. A captain commanding a submarine squadron, for instance, might be addressed as commodore just as a sub skipper with the rank of commander (or even a Coast Guard chief petty officer commanding a small patrol station) would be addressed as captain.

Have you noticed that each admiral who goes up against Captain Kirk is never seen again? It's like admirals are doomed if they don't go along with whatever Kirk wants. I think Picard did deal with just one or two admirals. How many did Sisko and Janeway deal with?
Then when Kirk becomes an admiral he gets demoted on purpose. At least, I think it was on purpose.

Have you noticed that each admiral who goes up against Captain Kirk is never seen again? It's like admirals are doomed if they don't go along with whatever Kirk wants. I think Picard did deal with just one or two admirals.-oregano

Admiral Janeway had some dealings with Picard

...of course they lose DATA instead of her.

Of course Janeway made Admiral. You don't want to give her a ship do you? ("Katherine, here is a nice desk.")

I hope her desk dosen't get lost, like that ship she used to have.

The problem is that nobody knows the size of the Federation Starfleet. Sometimes it seems like a hundred ships or so, sometimes it seems like it's in the hundreds of thousands. I mean, any organization with at least 200-600 Starbases should have thousands of ships, but it's never made clear.