This is off topic, but why can't you break alliances with Minors? Is that just an oversight on the Dev's part, or is it deliberate? Personally, I think it's pretty stupid.
Macerator
But even if the planet is useless for making anything or even research, you could use it as a look-out point for your empire. You could do that in GalCiv 1, and it was a great tactic, I was a little disappointed that you couldn't in GalCiv 2.
It just must be your game. In the game I'm playing at the moment there are only three other major races, and two of them are the the Terrans and the Thalans.
I don't know exactly what it does, but when I use it, I get a lot more Lucky Rangers- at one time I got 1 a turn for ten turns, and it also increases the chance of getting excellent planet tiles, like 700% manufacturing increases. As for creativity, in my experience, it just increases the likelihood of galactic events and colonization events.
It must be a memory leak on your system, bacuse I've only got 1 gb of RAM, and 1.1 works fine.