...why would I want to do that? I rarely actually hit caps lock for something and ctrl is in a nice place.
Shhhh... Linux folks are special snowflakes (I kid, I kid).
Y'all are just jealous y'all had to ride in that huge super-croweded bus while we went to school in the much smaller one with fewer kids.
Seriously, though, that's the point --- how often do you use each key and which is easier to reach from home row. Give it a shot!
Actually on-topic now.
Can hackers (which is what you'd need to make use of the "ARS choices" information) also see the choices, or just research stations? I'd check, but I haven't found an ARS in my current game yet.
Beyond that, is the "strategic benefit vs. hassle" ratio good for the extra information? Put another way, would it be game-breaking for the ARS to display its choices without another science station present, especially since all the other hacking options give their information up-front? (Or is it more an artifact of the interface, where seeing the information requires a ship under the player's control?)
[As a related question, could we put "give more than just the name of the ship in capturable / hackable buildings" on the UX improvement list? Having just started back up, trying to remember the general description and stats of each ship without F1-ing through the whole list is a bit more than a bit annoying.]
For having stations gather science, I'm leaning in favor of the idea since it simplifies things, especially for those who like to planet-hop rather than build a contiguous empire (I'm in the latter category). I think having it be on the level of a standard / MkI research station is a good balance --- it saves you the extra micro of creating a research station on the planet (or getting one there) if you aren't in dire need of more science yet, and you can still go to the effort if you are. It lets the player prioritize attention, even if small, on what he cares about at the moment.
That said, I don't think the current situation is an outright flaw or unbalanced or something --- it's a "nice to have" but not essential.
EDIT: Also, I bound the "select a science lab somewhere in the galaxy" key to alt+S
You're a fellow moon-OS user, correct? I take this to mean that your Alt key works (in particular Alt + Right-click)? What about the Pause key? Neither works currently on my system, but I expect that's a configuration problem I haven't taken time to track down yet rather than a bug.