Yeah, these rules aren’t for balance (I think it’s close enough as is), but for playability. The game is a turn-by-turn puzzle, but one person’s move can invalidate your plans (as with all games with a good amount of interaction). Games like that tend to do better if there’s an element of speed to who can complete their task first, so I like to break turns into smaller pieces and interleave them.

tl;dr: On your turn, instead of placing all of your cubes, choose one: place a single cube or reset.

Cube placement details: If you can activate a technology at that point (because its slots are filled), you must. If you have no cubes after placing, draw back up to three (or as many as possible: this does not force a reset).

Reset details: You can reset even if you have cubes left in your bag, or cubes left unassigned — these are placed back in your bag with the ones in the “unused cubes area”. This house rule amplifies city effects, but I think that makes for a better game, honestly.

General details: Optional actions are still optional and still unlimited: you can take them before and/or after your cube placement. Everyone still gets one more turn after victory conditions are met, but that turn is just a single cube placement at best.

I like playing the developer role with published games, especially if I can turn a mediocre game into one that I really enjoy.