They aren't horrible if you start with them, but I feel like you almost never want to switch to them except for fun.


Federation

+1 Experience on Heroes assigned to System per System Level


Thematic and gives a different strategic direction for a player to go for. Probably not objectively that strong, but at least it won't cause problems and easy enough to tweak up or down with numbers.


Dictatorship

Empire Approval only creates Science bonus/penalty.

System Approval also creates Dust bonus/penalty.


Thematic. Why should the Captial care that the Colonies are upset (and be financially impacted by it)? Conversely, Scientific progress still would be impacted.


Strategically, this makes for a more sensible Conquest Victory, since you can just abandon systems and not worry about their approval hitting your