This is an example of how different play styles can be. I take forever to do anything in GCII, especially in the ship designer, which I probably "play" as much as the game itself.

Have you tried Space Empires IV? If IRC it has a hotseat mode. Maybe that would take care of your hot seat space empire fix. It also has tons of mods out there for it. This is an example of a game that was made with multiplayer in mind from the start.

Don't even bother with SEV, it's way too buggy to play now.