[Taera]

Your idea of derelict ships, and SpecialResearch would never likely come out because it is simply what Scenario Editor requies.
Derelict Ships / Space Ruins / Whatever else requies either pre-placed objects or EventTrigger.
SpecialResearch is same, it either requies EventTrigger or other Trigger.

As we all know SEIV lacks any kind of triggers... well thats excluding the Sentry order but that gives you little.

For what i would like to see included in the game i could only say a deeper look on the weapons balance, research tree and racial technologies because IMO this is most important right now, but from what i know Aaron isnt going to make major changes to the technology tree so oh well..