I could only say thank you mr. for your wonderful answer: I like it so much that If I hadn't bought Sins II immediately upon EA release I would have now
I promise I'll try to do my best while properly answer to your points.
Easy things first: about the game vision I won't say literally anything because it's your idea and it must be respected whatever it is and that's what I think so on that my trust is 101% on you without even asking anything more. Of course I'm not considering Sins II still part of the envisioning meetings because it's present time: the vision of Sins II had to be done years before.
I like very much the subset of questions too and thank you again for having reported it: to be completely honest by reading those I must admit that they are very appropriate because I figured out immediately that they can help to track both the expectations of the hardcore gamers and of the new ones.
I must admit too I fear what happened with Starfield: being a fan of space games I was waiting that with the best hype ever and then it happened that the space on that game is merely a landscape done as easiest as possible. The result was that the space fans hardcore gamers gave to the game a 6 or 7 max out 10 but instead people who doesn't want to spend too much time and people who didn't know anything about space games loved the experience... hope those people will never go in real space maybe they will think space travel is just a click...
Anyway as you can figure out my fear is included in your questions: Was it fun and Was it popular are to me risky questions which should have some solid bounds to limit the acceptable answers. Countries at war of course invest into weapons evolution: when the USA encountered the Zero Japan airplanes the first time, they acted quickly (thanks USA ) to adapt their planes too and of course in the meanwhile only a dedicated tactics saved them from heavy losses.
Furthermore, a possible answer to: Does the lore require change? when not implementing a significant evolution on warships could only be a huge yes... well the reason is pretty obvious: the lore is basically saying that the strongest faction in game, the Vasari, with their current weapons systems are so terrified by the 4th faction that they merely are fleeing since 10.000 years and now since quite some time they are stuck here with their friends Advent and TEC.
By accepting that there won't be evolution we're basically saying that the odd vs the 4th faction are the same of Mass Effect races vs the Reapers... maybe even lesser than that
Of course that could be a choice to properly introduce the 4th faction or it could be a required step to be 100% in line with the vision of future steps of the saga so I cannot say that even choosing that is definitely and surely 100% wrong or 100% right.
By even seeing the SF recent experience I guess we could definitely say that gamers of today are very different from gamers in the Eigthies: we have both hardcore gamers, fans of something for whatever reason, casual gamers, new gamers just entered into the world (in the Eighties there were just hardcore at least in my Country but considering Stranger Things it seems even in other places it was the same ).
So a lot of those guys won't even notice whether or not upgrades are there and maybe those ones will be the majority. On the other hand I cannot be sure but I'd dare to guess that SoaSE lovers and lore fans just as we loved the moving planets for sure we love some significant and consistent with the world and your game vision upgrades.
About the Titan(s) part of your message: I kindly ask you If I can answer to that part specifically in another message (this one is already long sorry btw ) because I like so much what you wrote and I find it so fascinating that to me it needs a dedicated topic
Above everything else: thank you for taking time answering common people like me