I've slept on this, and I'm even more convinced tech trades are a bad idea. Not only are they frankly OP, but they also mean that you can't devellop secret techs, or try to outwit your enemy since tech will be traded. We now know that the RUS got lasers for exemple.
That being said, I must say that option 2) is my least favourite. At least option 3) gives us the chance to catch up with our own tech trade, but 2) is basically "We'll stop, but after we grab one more year's worth of research". We might as well give the FSA a list of all jump points. On the other hand, I guess why it would be frustrating if you planned your research on it, and, well, we're the one that blew up our tech trades after Peacekeeper. Couldn't you scale it down maybe?
Also, can I suggest that, if we ban tech trades, we give every faction some more RL to speed things up?