I enjoy long games. Sometimes, depending on who I could play with, I might want a longer gang or perhaps a shorter (i.e 1-2 hour) game.

So I was thinking, How would Stardock feel to change the resource and research meter from fast to a drag style bar that goes from 100x slower than normal to 100x faster? And the same for research?

That would let players choose the pase that suits them. Perhaps some players might like fast resources and seriously slow researsh so they have lots of smaller, less powerful ships to play with.

Because I may like slow games but my friend only has time for fast. And vice versa.