As making a game is always an unbelievably huge project, I can understand the temptation to go for the simple solution. I'd sure hate to see human psionics go away though. In my view, the problem in the original game was due to the guaranteed risk-free nature of psi-combat.
For one thing, all of the aliens were psionically weak, even if they had psionic ability themselves. If I remember correctly(couple years since I checked), mind-probing revealed that alien stats were all static according to rank rather than randomized like the human recruits. I don't think the devs realized that their game was so awsomely open ended that players could create psi-evaluation centers that sacked 90 percent of the recruits who weren't psionic super-heavyweights.
The things I really liked that I wish could be preserved:
1. PAYBACK.
2. For new players, discovering that you could actually harness this power. I don't think I did until my third game or so. Definately one of the top epiphanies of my gaming career.
3. I loved building a dedicated base for evaluation purposes. It made me feel like I was really in charge of an international orginization. I liked dedicated purpose bases in general. It was always pure chaos when my evaluation base was attacked, because I never gave them quite enough gear to handle that, so I had 30 unarmored rookies scavenging weapons from the dead. FUN.
4. The touching moment when, sitting down with the commander of my forces, bravest, strongest man among men that humanity could muster, and telling him that I have to let him go for the unforseeable reason that his psionic profile did not meet minimum requirements and that I didn't want to see the aliens tear his mind to shreds...
Isn't there any way we can keep this? What if psionic combat wasn't a guaranteed win, and that engaging in psionic combat could risk a reversal or revealed your position? What if it appeared later in game, requiring more various research steps to acquire? What if the last enemy base had a new, previously unseen in the game, psionic proof alien race? There's gotta be a million ways to solve the problems in a fun way without simply removing it.
