1st things 1st. Good day Industrialists!, i hope you are well and happy, that is important.
2nd I beg your pardon if this has already been researched, i DID used the search bar, however i just got flooded by greg/tech posts, and i would like to make a tread to collect suggestions and ideas.
Now, on to the suggestion.
Most of us have seen Thaumcraft 3 research system. It is rather nice, and it makes sense that a stevie that doesnt know how to make a wooden pick is unable to build high tech stuff. That doesnt happen in IC2. There is no researching or leveling up needed, only resources, so i will suggest a research system for IC! (Open to suggestions)
So, first you would need lab gear. Build a basic Microscope (wood and glass), a basic centrifuge (Iron, redstone, e.t.c) and you will also need a chemical lab and a note pad.
It works this way:
You gather an item, lets say redstone. You take it to a microscope, place it and analyze it. You place redstone in the GUI and press "Analyse". A bar starts growing slowly (The more advanced the item, the more time it takes, but never more than a minute or two). If you take out the GUI, the bar will slowly decrease. after it completes, you will get a fact. It will get stored in the microscope, you get your notepad and right click it to gather the fact (EX: Redstone in a basic Microscope: It seems that the material is fragile, yet highly conductible of certain tipes of signals). By using different equipment you will get different facts. (EX: Redstone in a centrifuge: Composed mostly of minerals that fuse at low temperatures).
So, you gather facts, take it to a research table and right click it with the notepad were you have your facts stored. They will transfer and you will see the facts listed in categories. Type of equipment > Tier of equipment > Material. Double click a fact and it will transfer to the research area. Combine facts together to obtain blueprints. (EX: High conductivity of redstone + Light focusing of glass + Thermal resistance of diamond = LASERS! Now you can write a blueprint\theory. This takes more time, in case of high tier research could take 10 to 20 minutes. Now right click the blueprint and TADAAAAA!! You can now build mining lasers.
However, by researching teories\blueprints, you can develop new tiers of research equipment. Research optics and you can build more advanced microscopes. After you research computers you can use a computer and CD-s instead of a research table and a notepad (faster that the previous ones, tough you can only use CD/s with eletronic microscopes for example)
Eventually, by researching AI, you could build robots. Sentry, Cargo and Researcher robots. Right click a computer with a research robot and he will research the techs you assign him to, so that you do something else (tough the robot is slower than you at researching)
One thing that you could build, more for the lolz, you be a scientific coat (boosts research speed and makes you feel like SCIENCE!)
Eventually you could combine facts, theories, robots in order to research everything, things like a nuclear reactor, quantum armors, everything!
Here are a few suggestion for tiers of research devices:
Research Table > Computer > Nano computer
Notepad > CD-s > Nano USB
Basic Microscope > Microscope > Eletronic Microscope
Basic Centrifuge > Centrifuge > Quantum Centrifuge
Basic Reaction Table > Laboratory > Nano lab
Maybe we could even research GLADOS 
.
So, what do you think_
My suggestion would have been a way to introduce a research system without being a huge overhaul for all IC².
