Modability..they are improving the game enough to add variations in races--hence, you can mod the races into whatever you want.

Currently it's possible to have six races.  With the improvements, modifying and using races gets expanded.

More than just adding races or factions, I'd like to see customizable race traits you can pick pre-game.  That is what I feel is lacking from a true 4X and would add great diversity to the existing content.

Making the modding of all parts of the game more upfront gui-like would be a nice option.

Part of Sins though is its a strategy game and that requires some balance.  It's a lot more interesting fighting a dissimilar opponent but the problem with "everything is changeable" sometimes means everyone picks the same strengths or balance is lost or you just end up fighting a mirror image.

In a persistent universe, I'd love full customization. 

...and yep--we are talking to different games here.

I'm all for adding a 4th race, but it would be very difficult to balance it with the other three races.  That's the problem; it would just make the issue of balance much more complex.  In contrast I think the differences between the factions and races will be smaller and thus easier to balance.  One thing they could easily do would be to add some more planet types ala the Sins Plus mod.

Sins as of Entrenchment is a pretty epic game as it is, but you have to play human opponents in online multiplayer to be able to see that.  (If you only play AI then your opponents are essentially retarded and the game could become pretty boring after a while.)

What no Fifth Race? I really hope someone gets this, and good luck on getting the devs on board with this.

Correct.

A forth Race would be nice. Like the race the vasari are running from. They should have caught up by now shouldn't they????

the rebels are new races with new ships, technology and look. Its gonna be fun cos thats double the amount of races to choose from. It will present more variety in a 5v5 multi-player game.

someone else is getting star-gates..

I would love the extra race to be the race chasing the vasari. Sorta like the borg arriving in system.

If its not a new race I hope they double ship classes for each race and have more planet action. Something new you know. 

Perhaps some character interaction ala starcraft.

would have been great for a campaign mode

Let me repost what I posted elsewhere on a campaign mode:

I think any sort of "campaign mode" would get repetitive very quickly. For each race, against any sort of AI, the same basic strategy will probably be used. Campaign mode should be significantly different from what could have been a series of random-small or random-medium maps. To make it halfway worthwhile, I think they'd have to make up new victory conditions so it isn't just "expand, then kill every enemy planet". For instance, campaign-based victory conditions could be something like: retain control of planet X for 40 minutes, prevent the destruction of starbase X, achieve an income of X credits per second, etc. But even still, for any player who has any MP experience (most of the regulars on this forum), any of this would probably be trivially easy... and if it were made even a little challenging to people like us, it would probably be virtually impossible for the masses who play only single-player. At their current skill level, at least.

However, a "harder" campaign mode combined with good strategic coaching from instructors or heroes in-game might help average players up the learning curve enough such that they wouldn't be completely trounced in MP the first couple times they play, which could prevent some of them from permanently going back to single-player in despair. In other words, a well-designed (hard but learnable) campaign could help entice more people to play online, which would be excellent IMO - but I don't know how much the devs care.

Of course there will always be those who'll always prefer single-player so they can watch the AI suicide thousands of ships into their starbases.

if a campaign(s) is included (which probably won't happen so the point is moot) it should be for its own sake, not to bring more players into mp. people who play online extensively likely won't bother with any sort of single-player mode so it doesn't need to cater to them.