I've always wondered the sense in blowing up a colony untill every last civilian is dead, untill every structure upon the planet is turned to dust, though it does help me understand the games name a little better
When I'm watching my glorious Marza Capitol ship send balls of explosive death down upon the civilians, I think shouldn't there be a better way? One should still have the option of absoloutly anhilating a planet, scorching it's soil and populace but I'd much prefer a ... slightly less genocidal approach.
How about the ability to construct fairly large transport ships which land on an enemy controlled planet, or send down smaller transport ships kinda like the colony ship but instead of supplies, they contain soldiers.
Of course I'm no softie so countless civilian lives should be lost due to uprisings and suppression efforts and it would take a bit longer than simply re-colonizing the planet, but you'd get to keep some of the populace and infrastructure rather than starting from fresh.
Bombarding the planet beforehand - could also make it faster for your troops to take it.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not talking about any sort of player-controlled ground battle, just like colonizing a planet it should work with a single click but I think it be a better way for some commanders to do things.
The other options should of course remain.. I.E - Slaughter everything on the ground.