Personally I think there is a (rival company) mole that works for stardock. They delight in breaking things in patches, that were not broken before.
Design Revolution Event Bug (malevolent pick does nothing)
Duterium Hull reinforcement has become a Thulium Hull reinforcement
AI no longer upgrades starbases (except economy and mining)
Many picks in the ideology tree's have simply stopped working (pragmatic pick that grants free escort fighters to EVERY ship doesn't work at all)
Slave Brokering treaty makes no sense
And so on 
I also believe this mole somehow prevents other devs from seeing complaints on the forums about these issues, since they have all been reported numerous times.
