Why this change?
Answer: simply for a bit of Realism.

The enemies bases have too much HP!
Answer: this is to make sense in making the enemies spawn at 30 seconds interval. (like StarCraft Zergs kind of)

Making Science Packs is too easy!
Answer: but making Labs is not that easy and they research slower for the first half.

Why would you want a game this ridiculously nerfed?
Answer: maybe just launching one Rocket is not fun enough so making it easy but not really free is a good compromise, remember there is a expensive setting in the recipe but no cheap. this makes it cheap and easy. so you can focus on exploring, building... if you add many mods, this can help you do just that!