The interview I saw him do a few weeks ago on the special features it wasn't that he was unaware of it, it's that he thought it was beneath him, he even said "oh the show with the ears." To disdain something is to consider it beneath you. So the example fits.He didn’t have disdain for the material, he was just unaware of it. Meyer watched and read everything Trek up until that point, absorbed the lore and knew it back to front so he could make the best ST film possible. By the time filming began he not only knew it perfectly but had reverence for it.
The rest of what you said is true, once he dug into it and found it to be similar to Horatio Hornblower, he found a way to a good story. He still felt Trek needed a lot of fixing to make it good though. And a lot of what he did Roddenberry famously did not like. It's not very dissimilar from what writers try to do today when they want to "improve" upon the source material. I
Irregardless, the original quote I replied to, said if someone doesn't like the material, they shouldn't be in the writer's room. That certainly fit Meyer when they chose him for Star Trek 2.