Usually the minor races are a non-factor and espionage is a waste, especially for the military players. When a minor civ crops up it is immediately conquered for the high quality planet. Only occasionally does the I-League or somesuch become fairly powerful.

For the culture and diplomacy players the occurrance of strong minors is more frequent and the need to spy is greater. I am content with no spying but I wish they would take out the recommendations to increase espionage spending if possible. Overall it is a minor annoyance along the lines of a recent comment by someone that right clicking the blue ship icon to auto launch was too much work