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The realism argument really shouldn't hold any sway imo. Science branches are mostly an incentive to focus on one type of research or spread it out. A balancing tool. But if scientists of a certain type are rewarded from certain mission types, your path of research will also change your mission choice, which is neat. However it's not as good as just making the necessary artifacts for research unique/rare as done in most OpenX mods. That leads to real diversity and storytelling. It occupies a similar role but actually works. Also it has the problem that unspoiled players will have researchers which do literally nothing when they run out of things to research in that field, and spoiled players will just pick a boring balanced mix. Kinda like the airgame. The XCOM genre in general needs to focus a little more on making every campaign different, not just being a scenario generator for squads with one or two of every class.

If anyone is wondering why the new build isn't released yet, the answer is that we've been delayed by some more problems with the Modular Armour system. I'm expecting the release to happen tomorrow one way or another; if we can't get the modular armour fixed and working for tomorrow then we'll put the build out without it.