For me it seems to mostly get rid of the tech level grind. Now instead of just waiting for TL to go up, you actively find better resources for QL.
I mean, that’s not great but much better than TL. And fixing this would require a fundamental change in city building/resource mechanics.
You always had to actively find better resources for QL, that hasn't changed. You still have the tech level grind too - you just have to research each individual product and resource instead of a broad TL for a specific building.
The only real changes I see are:
A: No more creating tech disks for spreading tech anymore. So you don't need to bring a ton of TL32 disks with you to make new cities, as each building in the city gets the tech instead of it being per-building. This also means that there is greatly reduced reason for money after you unlock the max tech level, since there isn't research cost anymore as you don't have to constantly produce TL32 disks.
B: No more chance based raising. This means no more spamming a couple hundred universities to quickly get TL32. I'm guilty of that one in the past, as are all the big empires in the game, haha. With a bunch of big cities of nothing but universities and a single building in each that you're teching up cranking out disks you can get up to TL32 surprisingly fast. I think I got there in a week when I did it before. Now it's a fixed timer and a much longer time sink.
I would argue that A is good, despite making money nigh worthless later on (unless there's another big money sink that he's added that I'm unaware of), just because trying to get enough disks to actually tech up your buildings before your tech level goes up and you have to start all over was an annoyance. B, however, only matters short term - i's still a fixed goal that everyone will eventually attain, so long-term it doesn't fix anything. It just means empires that aren't huge can keep apace with the big ones tech-wise, yet you still have to search far and wide to actually find the quality materials. And if you're already behind you have to trade for the tech, as no amount of spamming research will catch you up.
-edit- Oh, and apparently he lowered the effect that QL/TL has on stuff. So instead of a huge boost, getting high QL/TL isn't that big. This is probably a good thing too, as it means the high tech isn't quite as overpowered - but I don't know how much of a difference it will make.