Aack, not race experience! That's just a way to give some races an unfair advantage at the beginning of the game!
Now how about mercenaries and other for-hire units? You pay them a certain fee per turn and in exchange you get a leader to add to your empire who gives bonuses (increased research on the planet you assign him to, etc.), or a fleet of ships with unique or powerful abilities? (You could spend 200,000 points researching Ubermachium Armor... or you could hire Zero the Avenger for 10,000 GC a turn, who brings a fleet of 15 battleships that cannot be broken up or analyzed for tech, but is equipped with Ubermachium, not to mention the dreaded Polaris Cannon...
)
Also, please disallow one-ship fleets... it is really silly (not to mention a micromanagement headache) to be able to gain "fleet experience" in a fleet of that size!
