Imagine a 3-player game, where one person is winning by a large margin. The other two could vote to cancel under your scenario. Eliminating the Karma penalty after dropping makes much more sense in my opinion.

It's not the shortest path. The shortest path would require going through your buildings on the south. Note however that isn't a legal federation either, as it would include unnecessary buildings.
Which means you cannot make a fed using these 4 buildings at all.

It's not the shortest path. The shortest path would require going through your buildings on the south. Note however that isn't a legal federation either, as it would include unnecessary buildings.
Which means you cannot make a fed using these 4 buildings at all.

Except Ambas, Taklons, etc. perform even better when the person piloting them is actually thinking.
In terms of how much thinking each faction requires:
Lantids - I'll give it to you Lantids require some thought on PI, ability, placement, etc.
Gleens - On the other hand, for the most part its brainless. Your expansion is so constrained you rely more on the opponents to not be paying attention than actually playing well.
On the other hand, the factions you mentioned that require 25%-50% brain capacity on the other hand:
Terrans - Have multiple viable openers and requires power management, like any gaiaforming faction.
Ambas - I admit are fairly fixed opening-wise in their strategy.
Ivits - Have a ton of exclusive openings that you have to pay attention to, and you also have to pay attention to where you take planets/space stations. Also, they gaiaform about half the time, which means you have to make that decision and manage power well if you gaiaform.
Taklons - Require the most power management of any non-gaiaforming faction, and if the other players don't mindlessly charge you, you have to make those chase decisions.

Honestly speaking, the more versatile factions like Taklons require more thought than more linear factions like Gleens, since you actually have to choose what you're doing.

Imagine a 3-player game, where one person is winning by a large margin. The other two could vote to cancel under your scenario. Eliminating the Karma penalty after dropping makes much more sense in my opinion.

I like being able to do it with one click, but think that it'd be nice to have a tooltip when hovering over a planet placement saying how much ore is spent on terraforming or how much QIC is spent on jumping.