How about allowing the commander to research better weapons, armour and other things that could be equipable/automatically added after spawn for the different classes/all classes? It could be a new research branch called infantry research or they could seperate vehicle/aircraft/infantry/(possibly)structure research.
It's been suggested before, both the idea and the means to do the research (Look up Infantry Research Station or IRS). Meh, i looked it up for you cause I was the one that posted it a while back. http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=4451&highlight=IRS Reply to Knighttemplar: Yeah, my thread was more about making a separate research building for it. ahwell.
This suggestion was part of the design of the game, eventually it might be included, only time will tell. Reason for lock: Duplicate suggestion.