I started writing a big epic email, and realized that nobody in their right mind would read it.  So I apologize if I'm curt here, but this is the summary of what I feel about Sins:

Most of the time, Sins feels too mechanical to me.  I do enjoy the mechanics, but once I master them ( on Normal anyway ), I'm done.  In my head, I quickly start viewing the galactic map as a series of nodes, chokepoints, and +resource values, and the fleets as moving arrays of +damage values.  Sins is the most fun to me when I actually feel like I'm trying to lead my struggling empire through the chaos of interstellar war, rather than allocating numbers to hotspots.  The mechanics are good, but I think they're more fun when they're in the back of my mind rather than the front.

To that end, I'd like to have more in-game opportunities to reinforce the whole story and culture around Sins.  I think GalCiv2 does a very good job of this ( trumped only perhaps by Alpha Centauri ) by providing dialogue with the other faction leaders, adding "chance" events based on mysterious sci-fi occurrances, and providing small, random resources bonuses around the map that add color and meaning to the regions.  Yet at it's core, it is still just a string of planets and ships in space.

Could Sins ever have this kind of "heart" added via an expansion pack?  Something to reinforce my perception that I am forging through the mysteries of space?  I''d certainly buy it, and I'd be interested to know if anybody else would enjoy this kind of content.  To me, it's the differentiating factor between the game or two I play of Sins, and the days of Galciv2 playing I used to do.

Any thoughts?