OK, I thought of my medium (several weeks of programming) most-bang-for-the-buck change:
Put in tons of keyboard shortcuts. You wouldn't think that they'd be necessary for a non-RTS game, but I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome from mousing all day at work. And stuff like user-definable hot "systems", so you could go between systems 0 to 9 by pressing Ctrl-# (or something like that).
Along with this would go interface changes to save clicks/keystrokes, and simple changes people have suggested to "smarten up" the ministers. For instance, a single button to upgrade facilities empire-wide, as resources permit, without scrapping anything, starting with the most-productive facilities. Things like that would save a LOT of clicks!
HOWEVER: I don't think ANYONE (including myself) has yet come CLOSE to my trivial and small hard-code changes (see beginning of thread) in terms of bang-for-the-buck (BFTB = increase in value / required programming time). Although, admittedly, those changes wouldn't help PBW/PBM unless the people really trusted one another or had a game-master. But that doesn't matter, because it's all about ME!
