Does anyone else feel that the Raids level requirement either progresses too slowly or that the level requirement to unlock the ship movement speed research is too high?

At what progression is it normally expected for people to unlock this? 

I guess theres always the solution of just burning vespene to burn vespene...but thats pretty stupid to push new players into literally burning vespene just to unlock speed research

Hey you guys, lets go fly around the system 1,000 times with no purpose other than to watch vespene burn...?