Could SD make the micro less intensive by allowing you to pick certain planets that you all want to do the same thing and, with one command, change all those planets as per your requirements? Kind of like sending one email to 1 planet and CC'ing 19 others planets.

Hey, there's another Option right there!

My inclination is just to be Empire wide (I enjoy reading all the maths and "this thing is OP'd" "that thing is UP'd" conversations where someone'ss trialled and tested and worked things out but don't get too much into that myself). But I've always had a pretty small Empire (cough, cough) so micro'ing wouldn't bother me too much personally.

I think the specializations do have merit as it makes a player focus on certain choices.  But, I also think the other options should be researchable at some point, perhaps at a slower rate or at more cost.  Think about it, why must I choose to have a faster, longer range, or more space option for my ship?  Why would I not choose all 3?  What navy would not want to pursue all 3 options?  Now some of the options I could see would be mutually exclusive such as the World War I choices made by Germany and Britain...

Britain choce quantity over quality and they limited themselves to using the existing Shipyards and Docks so the British Dreadnoughts could only be a certain maximum size.  The Germans, on the other hand, built their ships wider and better subdivided so that when they suffered underwater damage they did not have as much problem staying afloat.

The German Navy in WW1 was short sighted in that their ships were very short range and crew accomodations were not well suited to a long patrol.  Whereas, the British fleet was of course designed to go anywhere in the world and was very long ranged and designed accordingly.

So. specializations need to be sort of divided into those that can all be picked up eventually, and as those that are mutually exclusive choices.  Even then, for instance, what would have prevented the Germans from changing their ideas and building longer range commerce raiders like they did in WW2?

I can live with one tech at a time, if SD really doesn't want to deal with the headaches of multiple research lines at the same time. I just don't believe that specialization should cut you off from other lines of research. The penalty is already built in, if you specialize you will plow down one line of research and not have really balance capital ships. If you generalize, you are going to be far behind the specialist in his specialization.

I would rather SD make specialization research become cheaper as you run down the list and keep the cost of other lines of research the same. Of course the reverse of this, leaving the specialization list the same and increase the cost of the non-specialized fields more expensive. The idea of preventing research in other areas just seems too forced.

If the various races had certain research fields that only that specific race could follow would make sense. As it is now, they are all basically the same with different names.