Great stuff, most of these issues are already getting addressed, but you brought a few things to light that i had missed or not thought off.
Starports are being renamed to Ship Yards, the ship yard will become the designer, which is what everyone already calls it.
Better tool tips are in the works for issues like not being able to tell what you "Ship Yard" manufacturing is coming from, etc.
The planet sponsors of the Shipyards is very new and the UI will need some polish, we will try and make sure you don't need to mutter angrily in the future.
Star tool tips are on the way, still not sure if we will be showing planets in them, as it kind of feels like cheating, but than again we did it in GC1 and 2. So....
The ships, being labeled M1, M2, etc. means they that is how many times that template design has been revised. Each time you unlock a new tech for a component used by that ship, it will upgrade its design. New drives, M2, New life support, M3 etc.