You're complaining about consumables which are intended to have limited charges then vanish. The only way around it that I can imagine would be to have an option where you can set them to auto-purchase a replacement, sort of like scrolling through TEC Enclave garrison commands - offensive, defensive, or stay home. Perhaps a default setting of expire on use, and an alternate of reorder after consumption? Some permanent items already do have passive v active states, though that is automatic.

FWIW I almost never purchase consumables as I consider them poor value for resources. The permanent upgrades - Beam Modulator, Energy Accelerator, Heavy Gauss Slugs etc all need to be unlocked before you can build them though. Actually, if you've 6 cap-ships all firing off Radiation Bomb, aren't you wasting a lot? While it is AoE, it doesn't stack.

As for looking at menus, why not simply pause the game? Or are you talking PvP?