@iNcog I guess the point is that if you do slinger rush, you should weigh if the extra 5 slingers you can get out (and the bonus throughout the rest of the game) do more damage to the opponent than to your future development. If you've chosen "wrongly" in the beginning, you have to "suffer" later on, quite realistic in my opinion. While I kind of like the option of researching the "dismissed" techs in more advanced phases, I think they should be very expensive, so that you may be able to get some additional techs through this path, but not all. Imho tech pairing is one of the points that made this game stand out.