I really like your concept of uncertain research time. Rule the Waves does it in a similar manner and it's true that it forces you to use what you have rather than plan out precisely what will be researched and when, although you still control the general direction of your research. It's a pretty big change though, need to find a ratio between remaining RP and the how likely a breakthrough is and make the relation between technology level and invested RP less direct.
I think a system similar to Rule the Waves would do well in Aurora for role-play purposes.
You basically would assigns researchers and labs for each category and then the game give you what it does give you when it is time for it. It certainly is more realistic and would serve very well for multi-nation campaigns.
Rule the Waves also has a diminishing return on investment into research which is also sort of realistic.
The system would abstract research and with research agreements with others you would then get specific points or benefits to research things that partner already have or if you research in the same thing you could both get a small bonus to that research.
You would then get some hints on research progress or if there is any setbacks.
There could then be some things you can steer research such as lowering the research on some weapon in order to prioritise something else. But you should never be able to completely cut research on some specific things, society have a tendency to be rather curious and want to know just for the sake of knowing. And often we the player use perfect foresight of the mechanic to just don't research something because we know that we don't need it, that is not usually how the people in that world actually see things.
I know that Steve don't like to add optional rules, but I really think that having something like this would be awesome so we don't end up with the same stuff every time at the same time, it just is not very realistic. But some players probably would object quite strongly so it could be an option in the same way that officer political influence can be an option for realistic purposes or maintenance on ships etc...
I always RP in my games that research labs (and even industry) can't just be moved between areas, that I have done for a long time. Even within the same area labs can't just switch focus in a major way. I want the factions of my games to make long term decisions and need to live with what they have for a long time. Expensive components is very difficult and time consuming to research etc..
I would definitely be in favour of this in some form and it works really well in Rule the Waves.