I have to agree with you, usually it is a waste of money. We use the tech tokens from Anniversary so when you spend $5 per token, if the dice don’t roll your way you keep the tokens and try again next round. So at least it’s not a total loss.
Even so, we rarely try for techs because everyone is too busy buying actual fighting units.
We have tried a couple of different methods for getting tech into the game like free tech rolls but they end up not working very well. We found 3 different results:
1 = Nobody still ends up getting techs
2 = One nation ends up getting too many techs and overpowering everyone else, which kind of ruins the game.
3 = Everyone ends up getting all or most of the techs, which ends up making the game almost the same as with no techs at all.
I am really looking forward to Young Grasshopper’s new Delta 40 rules. He is designing the new playing cards as we speak. It’s a great system where different nations will have certain techs available to them on certain rounds with others that they can roll dice for points to earn after so many rounds. This way all nations won’t get the same techs (kind of cancelling them out) and I think it will add some real flavor to the game. Plus, no spending $5 per dice to roll for some random tech that could end up not even helping you.