I find in most games by the time the action starts everybody owns all the techs and its just blackhole weopons against blackhole weopons, the rest of the tech tree merely being rungs on the ladder to the inevatablre blackhole tech.
Maybe if the techs where shared out among the race's at the start of game so that most techs where locked of to you. The only way to gain these techs then would be to steal or exchange, same with all other race's, I think then maybe the mid and lower techs would be of more use. I dont know, your the game disigners and are a lot more likely to know of a more intresting use of the tech tree, but I think it would give the game-play more challange if these higher techs where harder to come by.

I don't really know what Im talking about do I ?