If we are wishing
I would like to see intelligence projects take a fixed amount of time, and then have the success or failure of them be modified by the amount of points that you spend on them, and of course the amount of counter intell that your opponent spends to defeat them. It doesn't make sense that I can meet a new race and PPP his home planet the next turn just because I am generating a hundred thousand intel points per turn. Those kinds of things should take time to do, regardless of how much I am spending towards it. That would give the defender time to "break up the plot" so to speak. Each time their counter intel succeeds, it could set my intel project clock back. It wouldn't even have to be total failure. Say a PPP takes 2 years to do, they could have a partial victory (Safehouse discovered, etc.) that might set me back 6 months, but not scrap the whole spy organization.
The same idea would work for other intel projects, but they would have shorter times to completion of course.
I also like the racial traits giving a defensive bonus to defeat projects, beyond just the current system of adding a percentage onto intel production.
Geoschmo