I seriously want to know what will be researched next
The whole "You have no clue what you'll be researching until you have finished", with no indication along the way as to where the research is going, with no way to say "this is what I want to research" paradigm is stupid. It dates back to games before civ-1, and was painful even then.
I hate the "you have unlocked auto-boost for item X", or "You have improved auto-boost for item X" research. It is a waste. It tells me that I have wasted my research. Auto-boost consumes a ridiculous amount of power and is not worth it even for scrap metal, and I've never bothered with it on anything else because it's so expensive/worthless.
I want to improve production rates. I want to improve my storage amounts (and why are they limited so arbitrarily in the first place?) I want to improve efficiencies.
I don't care about half the research I'm getting now. And I can't get any clue as to what's worth researching next.
This gets back to my older complaint that the early game is just "rinse and repeat" with babysitting.
A quick example: I have stopped doing any research into scanners now that I've found out that there ARE hostiles. I don't want to accidentally find any before I've even gotten to weapons research let alone a working weapon.