I think there should be more random events in the games such as...

1) Planets should be strike by diseases, famines, quakes in a way that it will deplete the populations, destroy certain faculties or completely destroy the planet (i.e make it become neutral, uncolonized) unless certain resarch are archieved to resolve the catastrophe.
--This will throw a spanner into the race's intended path of research.

2) Space Monsters! (See other thread)
-- This will cause race or player to shift their attention away from their arrogance path to galaxy domainance (or at least delay them)

3) Doom-days Asteroid Strike (similar to Space Monster) except that this is target to move towards a random planet or space station and destroy it (make the planet or resource point neutral if destroy) if nothing is done to intercept and destroy it.
-- Same as above

I will try to think of some more randoms event but I think these are easy to implement and start with. They give GNN more intereting news to report than the stupid news about research completed or race destroyed, etc.