Ef, no problem, wherever you find a question about SOTS, I will be there! ta-daa! :Brain:
TO answer your 2 part question
Yes, you can pick a player color and it shows up on your icons and lables in the strat game and as a base hull panel color in combat. The colors are limited to 8 specific ones though as you REALLY don't want to play a 8 player game with 7 people who really like various shades of blue.
As for alien race customization, we went against this for a couple reasons. 1) It has just become standard feature throughout the genre and it really didn't excite us too much. and 2) We have always prefered games where the aliens have very strong characters, play-styles and motiffs. Swapping their characteristics just seems to make them feel generic and not much more than art skins to us. I suppose we would rather have you hate the Liir and swear never to play them in a game that not really know or care about them in anyway except as art.