In 1.2 it seems as though the galaxy generator isn't doing a very good job of spreading the wealth. Some games I need to ctrl-n 10 times before I get a galaxy where most races seem to stand a chance. Too many times one or two races get all the solar systems and everyone else is stuffed into a corner all piled on top of each other with very few extra solar systems. For me, even if I am one of the 'lucky' ones, I reload until I get some sort of relatively fair distribution. I don't remember having this problem so much before 1.2.
I am usually playing on Medium galaxies with abundant planets and tight solar system distributions. In Large galaxies this may not be such a problem but in Medium it pretty much sucks. Anyone else having this problem?