1. Please let players turn off the minor races

I have tried to find this option everywhere, but it doesn't seem to exist.

Is there no way to take the minor races out of the game? I dislike them intensely (almost as much as I dislike the new ability to share systems with other races), but don't really wish to debate their pros and cons.

I just feel if players don't want to deal with small races that do nothing but stockpile defensive ships, they should be able to turn them off.

2. Let players upgrade the core ship designs

I haven't gotten very into the new ship designing features, but I've found one annoying thing already. When I get a new propulsion system, I apparently have to design an entirely new ship from scratch in order to take advantage of it.

Is there any reason that I can't simply upgrade an existing design (especially the colony ship and scout) to take advantage of the new drive system? At the moment I have some of the ugliest looking colony ships because I don't really feel like taking advantage of the structure features to design a ship that is probably only going to last a few dozen turns or so before I develop the next drive system.

Allowing players to copy the core designs and modify them would save time and make more sense with small upgrades like engine improvements.