I definitely agree that PX should get their own research tree, incorporating various design elements from the other factions (and Pandas/Anu) - you get a basic version of this late game
Different ammo types is the best and easiest way to go about that imo. (and something I’d like to see anyway, to keep the relevance of early rifles etc)
I, on the other hand, believe that the reverse engineering process currently is pretty unbelievable. I think, you shouldn’t lose the weapon you’ve put up for research, but instead, you should only gain the ability to produce ammo for it. (How do you suddenly know how to perfectly reproduce something, that others have spent years researching, in a matter of hours?) - But, you should still gain some of that knowledge to be able to apply it to PX future projects