First game in final release, playing two hard AI's, defeated 1 fairly quickly.  I was playing as Terran Rebels and had quickly researched TAR, however, the remaining AI continued to place bounty on me, resulting in simply a buildup of inactive pirate forces around the pirate base.  By the end of the game there were literally 1000 ships surrounding the pirate base, doing nothing, just sitting in the little clusters formed with each would be pirate attack. 

This is a problem for two reasons.

First, there should be something in the game such that the AI recognizes which faction you are playing and what techs you will most likely have researched mid- to late game and react appropriately. Continuing to place bounty on a TR player mid to late game is a waste of resources for the AI- making it less playable.

Secondly the resulting buildup of ships over time begins to introduce more lag (especially given both the AI and human player will have large fleets by mid to late game as well).  Hundreds of pirate ships doing nothing but hanging around their own planet is an additional source of lag that adds nothing to the game.

PS-- the bounty was not a result of the AI attempting to outbid me, because as soon as I had researched TAR I stopped placing any bounty on the AIs- preferring to spend my resources on ships and fleets that could take on the enemy and earn experience on my own rather than by proxy (which would mean no exp gain).