I would not mind or object if the pace was lowered. I certainly had to turn down the AI to easy from the Default AI setting. I definitely remembered feeling exactly the way Lord Crash did about upgrades being pointless when I first started out.

I actually recorded some footage in Fraps, just hovering over the tooltips for the sole purpose of being able to see what all the upgrades were, so I could read them later at my leisure outside of the game. It's a good idea to decide on a general strategy before you start to play a match, and pick and choose the upgrades that will support the strategy.

Now that I am a bit familiar with what the upgrades are, I'm coming into games already with a strategy for what upgrades I need in mind. That helps a bit. Without a second production facility, you have to shoehorn in your upgrades between units. Units at least build quickly.