And no offense, but i don't really get a lot of "texture" in my battles. I just roll in with my mega fleet, set speed to +1 (if my computer can run that fast ) and either:
* take out a target
* stomp on everything on the planet,
* or run after getting my fleet sawed in half with a giant chainsaw
Not having played with the no guard posts, I don't know if your comment was about them, or just playing in general. That being said, I kind of agree with you about there not being much texture to how I play either. I tend to knock out a planet with raid starships, pwn all the ships that poor through the gate into my fleet, then jump in with transports and blow everything remaining into the stone age. Rinse and repeat for the next planet. For harder planets, sending in a transport with builders and engineers (if I have supply) and building a fort or two helps. That is... mostly it, as far as offense goes.
Thanks to the new change of golems, and how I don't tend to attack planets that still have much firepower on them, I'm finding the golems even less useful then I did back when they caused AI Progress, but could be used anywhere. *Shrug*
All that being said, I still think it's an awesome game, and even with the "lack of texture" comment I made, it still has a lot more texture then most games on the market.