with the player written patches I found MOO3 to be pretty tolerable in the end. Had it not been called MOO3 it would have stood on its own merits (with the player patches - the original game was terrible beyond belief).
Personally, I would like a full quality polished version of something similar to space empires V. With proper AI, nice graphics, working multiplayer and properly customisable games. Turn based too. I do like SINS and as a real time space game it does a very nice job, but i also want a proper huge scale detailed space empire game, with the detail while being high still being voluntarily automatable enough to not become a spreadhseet nightmare once you have a large empire. Customisable enough to play whatever scenrio you want easily (tiny republic with fast tech advance trying to reist the slow and ponderous but static evil empire etc). and with a huge and detailed tech tree.
GC2 was fun as well, but the ship design system wasnt as fun as space empires v. i missed the huge detail from SE5 with drones, missiles, mines, fighter carriers and generally more sophisticated ship and tech design options. I also felt the wormholes added more strategic depths to the game. sadly SE5 has one of the worst AI's ever made and sadly graphics also matter to me and id prefer it to look better and be easier to read.