My own rules are the following:
1) No stacking excessive amount of terraformers on a single planet. I don't have a hard rule here, basically I make it so it always take some years to terraform. The numbers do change according to how far my tech is. I am allowed to terraform multiple worlds at once, but I try not to go crazy with it.
2) No civilian mining complexes or civilian fuel harvesting. No sane real world nation would leave such critical, extremely limited and life ensuring materials in the hands of civilians. I sometimes keep civs around for transportation.
3) No automines except for comets (kinda necessary for the start). Automines are simply too convenient, period. So it's either infrastructure+ mines, or orbital habitats, or mining ships (not much of this). This is why I don't like the idea of limiting population growth, I kinda need the population XD
4) No mass drivers. Good old cargo ships doing rounds.
5) 10% exploration speed, 25% research speed. Not hard numbers, it's just what I currently use, still experimenting.
6) Lately I've been doing a half-tn start. Start conventional, SM research TN, SM edit the planet so I have basic tn-era facilities (mines, factories, refineries). And that's it, no other techs or starting spaceyards or extra facilities. I basically don't want to deal with the starting conversion. No starting fleet of any kind either.
7) No reduced size missiles or box launcher on normal ships, as the AI cannot deal with it. Box launchers are only allowed on fighters or FACs, and the boxed missiles MUST be short ranged. Basically, I can use them but I need to actually get close with the bombers/FACs. I also don't get crazy with them, cause that would also defeat the spirit of this house rule which is to not abuse the AI.
My fleets are mostly beam warships and carriers. Missile capital ships are reserved for stragglers/damaged ships, lone ships, civilians, bombarding or other special uses. I also use them if I discover a particular enemy has little point defense.
I personally don't like your no-free-infrastructure change, as I need all the infrastructure I can get due to my mining needs XD