Well it wasn't capitalization...
What it was is a little quirk of AI_General.txt, it select one advanced trait of any point cost OR a combination of traits totaling less than or equal to the racial point limit... but not considering any "bounus" points from low racial charistics
The space monsters take -50% on mining/refining, -35% on happiness (and +10% reproduction)... this gives enough points for emotionless(3K)/Natural Merchants(1K)/Space monster(0)... but it won't put emotionless in because of this quirk! (If I switch the order to put emotionless at the top of the list, It'll put in emotionless but not the other two, even though one costs 0 points! Thus it must be a limit of 1 trait of any amount OR a number of traits <= racial points)...
Kind of annoying, I've got to redo their AI_general, cultures.txt to fix it (removing emotionless, adding happiness +)
Oh, well...