T1 dust (and perhaps even influence) upgrade

I do like the idea of moving the +1 IND/+3 IND to tier 2 with Mining

You had my vote at "blindly and irresponsibly".

Seriously, though, the tech tree needs an overhaul badly. For starters, a tier 1 dust building replacing the hyperium tech industry building, influence added to the happiness building... while there might be political signaling issues about mixing happiness (an ecologist yield) and influence (a religious yield), the cost is negligible compared to the need for a very early influence building.

I would just like to see the strategic resources tied to Quadrant Tier Unlocks instead of researchable techs. They could just add new strategic resource refining system improvements to replace the old techs:

• Titanium Refining - x2 Titanium Production on Star System
• Hyperium Refining - x2 Hyperium Production on Star System
• Antimatter Refining - x2 Antimatter Production on Star System
• Adamantian Refining - x2 Adamantian Production on Star System
• Quadrinix Refining - x2 Quadrinix Production on Star System
• Orichalcix Refining - x2 Orichalcix Production on Star System

Tying strategic resource refining to tech research makes these techs necessary and I don't like creating "Required Techs". I plan to create a vast idea in the near future arguing for massive reworks of tech trees and added modules to try to combat the "Required Techs" dilemma in ES2.