I Loved This system in SMAC and think it would be very cool if it was included as an optional way to play for GCIII
Basically you don't choose which Specific Technology to research yourself, you instead choose a general path to follow. So we would Choose from:
Military: Guns and Shields
Diplomacy: Learn to get along with your neighbours and manipulate them without weapons
Exploration: Faster Ship Engines and Better Scanners
Building: Everything to do with Planetary infrastructure
And the game will choose one of these type of techs to research at random from the ones available to be researched. At any time in the game you can change your focus to another area, you can choose to split your focus in more than one area, or you can choose every area to essentially have no focus at all.