Actually this is not funny at all.
I just played a game were there was two Altarian republic races.
Both having the default color of their borders, both having the default logos, both having the default style of ships etc.
It´s just awful. The only difference between the races were that they were led by different leaders. One by the default female character and the second by the optional male character from GalCiv I.
The two Altarian races started close to each other so that their borders did merge into a mess. They also had colonies inside each others sphere of influence so it become impossible to figure out whitch one was belonged to witch race.
I once started a game playing the Altarians so that I intentionally selected the alternative Altarian leader (As I´m used to him from GalCiv I).
I think the duplication of the races in the game has something to do with it. There seem to be some kind of a bug witch mess the default setting/races up somehow everytime you start a new game with non-default race settings or something.