I have no idea if this has been suggested before (or whether, even more embarrassingly, I'm missing something in the game interface) but would anyone else find it useful if you could see the mini-map while you were in the planet management window? Sometimes while I'm going through my selection of building options, I need to see which one of my planets i'm dealing with (i.e., exactly WHERE in the galaxy it's located). The name doesn't work for me, though I sometimes use a naming convention that includes compass bearings (e.g., SE-1a for the first colonized planet in the southeast adjacent sector to my homeworld, etc.) but that still doesn't help to remind me which races are close by or what else might be in the vicinity. I just think it might be helpful to leave the minimap visible .
Of course, I'm not 100% sure where it would go. The only obviously available space is the picture of the modification to be built in the bottom left hand corner of the screen which, with profuse apologies to the graphic artist who designed it, adds nothing to that screen but flavour.
Anyway, just a thought.