@sladow-noob While looking for explanation of the vision change, all I was able to find was 'it's a bugfix, not a balance change', despite it obviously making a difference to balance. I did ask about quite a bit, and it quickly became apparent that it hadn't been discussed anywhere public on discord or the forums. I'll try to keep a more vigilant eye on farm's stream, although without a 'search function', it sounds like a pretty bad place to have to go to understand how high-rated players felt about the change. (I do think I watched a relevant twitch video at the time, looking forward to the explanation, and getting none; but I might have dreamed it!)
Regarding rating and discussion, I've personally enjoyed exploring 'what if' scenarios in general discussion areas, but as I said I don't make official 'balance suggestions', and when I comment on those threads I only try to re-iterate what I've heard to players say, or reference actual unit stats for objective discussion (such as me mentioning that an ED1 shield costs <5% the cost of a T3 power for cybran). Still, I might well have been grossly mistaken about the 'pro'/balance team opinion on that, and maybe cybran will be getting hitpoint buffs to ensure that their reduced hp buildings never actually result in cybran structures dying to less shots.
What I've found about rating as I've been playing and chatting more, though, is that many of the players who I've been listening to quite avidly don't even play certain game types, and it takes time to learn which voices are relevant to the game types we personally play. This 'required rating' metric for discussing balance would have to ensure that a player was versed in all areas of the game, I imagine; so that they know all the implications of their suggestions? Or is that not the suggestion, and as long as someone is good at something, their opinion is valued?
It all sounds a bit elitist to me tbh. I think there's already too much elitism in this community, where a newcomer can't get a game precisely because they're a newcomer!
I think the best solution is to let people discuss what they want on discord or the forums, and ensure that the balance team aren't clueless wackos like us peasants!