Strongpoint, I do in principle agree with your view of "only addressing our weaknesses will lose us the game". This is because we will only be reacting to advances the other side makes, and barring good rolls that give us more than what we asked for, we will eventually fall behind as the enemy wins battles in that short period before we address a new weakness.
However, in the case of ground combat, I feel that it is essential that we win, in order to get alien tech. From the first two missions, what I gather is that air combat alone will not gain us any significant amount of alien tech. Either the craft is completely destroyed in the air, vaporising the tech, or we shoot it down, fail to capture then the surviving aliens fix it and get back up to space. We absolutely need alien tech in order to get ahead.
Happerry, are you sure a design that aims to get us more production points is allowable in this game? From what I recall, Arms Race generally doesn't allow designs that focus only on "get us more resources". But the logistics of this AR is somewhat abstracted, with no territory to capture or any way that I can see to get more points from battle, so if you can confirm that such a design is allowed, I'll vote for it.
Chiefwaffles, I like your design, but I think the focus should be more on "battlefield management system" rather than individual HUDs. Perhaps consider adding a line about how these visors can display targets identified by other visors, enhancing effectiveness the more soldiers and points of views we have? Could lead into a revision to spam quadcopter scout drones of our own over the battlefield.