Of that’s the case, you could store the pattern for whatever age you want and always return to it in the future. I don’t really see that as an issue to the concept. Just more of a hassle, and obviously you can’t return to before you decided to start storing that.
Since they evidently keep info about people in transport as a matter of course (they used it a lot in TNG to make a point about someone’s medical condition), you’d think they would just restore you to healthy body instead of beaming directly to sickbay too…
Of that’s the case, you could store the pattern for whatever age you want and always return to it in the future. I don’t really see that as an issue to the concept. Just more of a hassle, and obviously you can’t return to before you decided to start storing that.
Since they evidently keep info about people in transport as a matter of course (they used it a lot in TNG to make a point about someone’s medical condition), you’d think they would just restore you to healthy body instead of beaming directly to sickbay too…