Follow up:

Color me embarassed.

After reproducing the "No galaxy graphics" a dozen times (including just using Human and Iconians), I posted the above, and went back to GC2 to bug hunt a bit more. All races - Iconians start: No galaxy graphics.

Repeated that for the next 6 tries, including exitting completely and then starting up the GC2 game.

Each restart with no graphics also have the same problem:
Earth does not start with a Colony base, nor a Star Port.

Star Port appears in the buildable list. When included in queue, it is no longer listed as buildable.

Thanks magus! I'll just have to keep trying then.

I just tried starting a new game with the Iconians as the only opponent, gigantic galaxy size. The screen came up black, but when I moved my mouse pointer over the screen it displayed coordinates like [0,-1], [-10,-1], etc. As I used the scroll wheel to zoom out and then back in, the galaxy star background appeared (but with no stars), then went back to black. When I clicked on the minimap in the vicinity of Earth, the display went back to normal.

It appears I was positioned off the bottom of the map. I clicked on the minimap at the bottom and found that if I left my mouse pointer there the map gradually scrolled down (depsite the fact that I had GC2 in windowed mode) until I was off the map, and then the black screen happened again. Clicking on the minimap or the Find button restored me to the "Earth" section of the map.

Not sure if this is what you other guys were experiencing ...