That's only a problem at the starting tech level, when you design your units for the first time. After that all you need to do after reaching a new tech threshold is update your previous designs.
Or not, if you see no need for it. You don't have to after all, NPR ground assaults are probably not going to be a thing.
Well, I guess I could be optimistic, but when I update the previous designs of my ships that's not exactly the simplest of tasks. The difference is that my ships are major assets that deserve design attention. The composition of
the minutest elements of the ambiguous constituent parts of ambiguously defined units that combine to form what used to be straightforward battalions for roles of marginal importance within the game that the A.I. will never be able to implement if NPRs ever
do engage in ground combat ... I've lost my train of thought somewhere, which is sort of analogous to what I think an overly complex (and probably permanently buggy) ground combat scheme might do.
I just hope this isn't a missing the forest for the trees situation---seems like there'll be more effort in design (including redundant research) than in making tactical choices about what units to commit and less flexibility when we must commit resources
and planning (important/pleasurable to me) along separate research and building tracks. For example, if there was an actual interplanetary infantry formation, it wouldn't be so specialized that it couldn't re-equip and re-train itself for different environments. Since that's the inherent nature of having such a formation, is it beneficial to go through the trouble of micromanaging its design to the level of deciding whether troops have "power armor"? (Answer: if they have the technology and the money, the troops absolutely WILL have power armor, but probably not every trooper, just the ones that constitute a heavy weapons squad/platoon/company whose capabilities would
already be reflected in the effectiveness of the higher-level organization.)
Hopefully, my concerns are just overblown, but I might as well put them out there.