I have only had the game for a few time, so i still fall in the newbie zone. But as anyone here i'm entitled to an opinion and this time i would like to express the one related to
Goverments & Political Parties.
This game is very good and i know that i'll be playing it for years (even without Dark Avatar... but i preordered it becuase it seems gold!). But there are a few things that i don't like and/or cannot understand. I know about all the problem of a complex game versus a simple game. I find this game not to be too complex, what it's good, but i also find it too simple in some things.
If i were to tweak the system of political parties and the like, i would try to avoid the silliness of having abusive high taxes until the week before elections (if you changed Goverment), when you lower them until you get a nice and safe approval rating. Then the elections comes and seems as if everybody forgot all the other weeks were you bleed your people for money.

It would make sense if the game had a "log" of the taxes since the last election and have it to reflect in the following elections. If the choices in the random events could have some impact ("What? You sacrifice 1000 citicens each day for that frakking event? And you want me to
vote you?") that would be nice too. (accumulative effect in some cases, mind you)
I also find curious the idea that after the elections, your planets have a ruling Political Party. So if in the elections your Federal Party gets 99% of the votes, for example, you would have 99% of your planets with that party as the most important one (and getting the bonus of your party) while the rest (lets suppose that the War Party got the other 1%) have the other party and don't get your party's bonuses. (maybe gets that other party's bonuses, would make sense)
When going to war, there could be a... hmmm "prevotation screen" where you can try to buy votes from other parties in case that you don't control the Senate, for example.
I don't think that it's too complex (except maybe the events part but the rest seems not too complex as it seems Stardock's desire) and although i know that Stardock won't use it (not per se, not depured), i wanted to tell the known world about it.