Some hints for approaching SEV

[Beorne]

I was a very avid SEIV player so I bought SEV As soon it was out. But I was overwhelmed with the interface complexity and I read there were lots of bugs so I rapidly dropped it. Now I've seen lot of debugging work has done on it and on the Kwok's balance mod so I ask you: is it a good and enjoyable game? Are there big issues left over yet?
Another thing ... I tried to start a game without using Quick start to edit some setting ... but I had to hand made my alien race and I did't found a way to load it from the pre-builts. It is possible?
Ah ... last question: I think with all this debugging the game is changed a bit, is there an updated manual? spaceempires5.com is a little confusing ...
Thanks