There are a number of experts around who know much more than me, but I'll try to answer one of your questions.  Ascension does not produce as high a score as military conquest (or culture flipping all planets, which counts the same as military victory when a culture win is turned off).

I seem to remember seeing someone saying that there's a penalty for winning too soon, but I don't know the formula.

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will post.  

The simple answer is to do everything you can do as big and as fast as possible.  You score will be significantly better if you can fit everything into a year less than you're used to-but as I don't know what you're even used to, I can't exactly provide an expected percentage increase value.

Dread Lords aren't necessary for this, which is good, because the community has agreed that they are not to be used, although they won't actually trip a cheat flag at last check.

Finishing the game too early only applies if it's under ~12 turns, and you're not going to manage a giga/all-abundant, not to mention one that's focused on score, anywhere near that early, so don't worry about it.  Have a look at the ZYW thread(s) if they interest you, though.

TA will actually (95% confidence) result in a somewhat lower max score than DA, due to being a bit slower to ramp up and most of the additions (extra tiles from biosphere modulator and weather control zenith, for instance) are pretty much canceled out by other changes (less planets overall than in DA, about 200 less IIRC in a giga/all-abundant).  But it shouldn't be more than about a 5-10% difference endgame-probably on the lower end of that range.

Relying on the MCC-as-planet-flipper is too slow for maximum score.

Why, if you don't mind my asking, did you choose the Yor (considering that this also means the Yor tree, yes?) for TA?

Not having my own game accessible at the moment, it's hard for me to say precisely what each tree may be missing, but when I was doing some test TA games myself my preference was Thalans-although to be honest it's been so long I can't remember why.  Just curious. 

 

With TA's additional mining modules allowing you to reach up to ~70% or more per mining SB (DA is 39% fully mined), your stats are that much higher-even accounting for the financial loss of the MCC-and the extra that you gain from Yor's unique techs that much less, percentage-wise.

Short version: Absolutely.

Long version:  I guess I wasn't clear.

You'll notice a drastic difference if you're able to do the same amount in 12 months less.  But, holding all other things equal (which they never are, of course), every single turn makes a difference.  If you want maximum score, you'd better be prepared to be ready to submit in under 5 game years-that's end of year 4, to be precise.  The longer you spend playing the game (turns, not time), the worse your score divisor becomes, and there is a point where you can no longer justify continuing the game, as it has reached its score peak.

Earlier isn't always better-it'd be nigh impossible to score, say, a million-pointer in the minimum 12 or 13 week timeframe necessary to make it MV-legal.  But as a general rule, the sooner, the better-provided you've managed to get everything done, of course.

What?  Your tech score has absolutely nothing to do with your techs.  It is based entirely on your research generation.  Getting or giving techs doesn't affect it in any way, shape, or form.  What getting techs DOES affect is your tech inflation-or, in TA, your tech inflation threshold.  Giving away techs doesn't have an effect, but it ought to also increase the AI's tech inflation threshold as well, for them receiving.

Yup, it's lower across the board.  And tech costs are higher, even before accounting for weapons getting an artificial increase after TA 2.x.  That is, a tech with an XML cost of 1000 will not cost the same in a very fast/gigantic/DA game as it will in a very fast/gigantic TA game; from memory, TA's cost will be as much as ~20% more ingame, before other factors (inflation thresholds and increased weapons costs)-but I don't remember precisely.