I think generally all of what you have suggested is plausible as well as possible, however I must disagree with taking time to build ships. The taking time to research is a decent idea, but it would simply be boring for the average KSP user... Think about it, it takes a long time to research something, so all you have to do is time-warp, completely defeats the object... Also, the taking time to build ships isn't the best, simply because KSP is really about building whatever you like, launching it and hoping it works, then improving it etc. Although this could be implemented as a career mode only thing, I just don't think it'd be a good feature. Everything else seems cool though, I like the idea of upgrade-able buildings and starting off with just the VAB and LaunchPad. Good Stuff.