I really have missed quite a few things, it seems - thank you!
It is hard to keep up with all of this stuff.

I do want to bring up one more point but before doing so I want to mention that it looks like we do have everything specified in the OP of this thread.
However, there is a substanstial difference in this month from previous month's in that this is the first time that we're trying separate victory conditions. I'm glad we're doing this because I think this is the final configuration that we need to try before we can safely conclude that we've ironed out all the kinks.
The point of this round versus all previous rounds is that barring some superhuman effort there are only really four legitimate competitors for top score this month and these are the four people that happen to get assigned the military conquest game. In a similar manner I suspect that one of the other victory conditions has an advantage in the game speed category.
I had made this suggestion a number of weeks ago about how we could potentially deal with this situation. I suggest that for this type of challenge only we change the bonus scoring to give a single point to only the highest scoring game (and ties) and the fastest game (and ties) but we give this *for each catagory*.
So there is a bonus for fastest and highest scoring tech win, fastest and highest alliance win, etc. That way everyone has a even chance of getting the bonus for their game type.
I do want to preface this suggestion that I don't think we have to do something like this. Unlike the non-submittal issue, if we leave bonus scoring the same in this case it's still fair to all *teams*. It may not be fair to all members of each team but no one team has any particular advantage over another.
So this is just a suggestion and as long as people understand the consequences I'm fine with either course of action (or inaction). What do people think?