I have a vague recollection of the humanoid that V'ger hijacked to serve as a voice being romantically involved with the original captain that Kirk replaced, and that relationship being exploited and becoming a plot element later. So I think there was some going on...
Back in the early 90's I wondered why so many Unix boxes had 'vger' in their name. Not until this year, when I watched the original Star Trek with my youngest, did I realize what it was all about.
Sad thing is I saw the movie in the theater when it was first released...just didn't put the two together.
The first two Linux machines I ever had to admin back in the 90's where called Picard and Kirk (Picard was the primary, Kirk the secondary (no guessing which series I preferred)).
[Spoiler below, hopefully not a huge deal for an almost forty year old movie)
Voyager returns under the name v-ger.