Eh, its not too deep in the tech tree, and I had a somewhat more successful start than you did, coupled with the fact that I didn't capture a vital dude for a while game me more time to research side topics. On the other hand the enemies have like 6 bases up, so I'm like completely haemorrhaging points each month. I should really clear some out, but they were all academician, and the voodoo+gauss really freaked me out.
Research Spoilers Below
I dont actually consider the loss of stats to armor to be that bad, but I suppose any loss of TUs & Stamina is problematic with your fixed tu usage melee troops.
EDIT: Also you may wish to look into the Motion Scanner. I haven't actually used it in Piratez yet, but I've had some success in vanilla xcom using it to predict when it's safe to go up elevators in ufo defence, especially on the supply ship map.