Things that are annoying

I do agree that humanity doing all what they did in the span of about 30 years is hard to believe. When Bioware chooses to reboot the trilogy, I would have humanity be part of the galactic community for about 100 years before the events of ME1 take place.

That would be an interesting take on events, and one that would finally cast humanity in an underdog light. I'm sorry, but contrary to what the narrative was constantly trying to tell us through NPCs and major companions, humanity was never in the "little guy" corner.

The really underdogs of the setting were the Hanar and Elcor; two species that the entire galaxy apparently decided was completely acceptable to mock and make fun of at every opportunity.

The ubiquity of human biotics

But I agree that it doesn't make sense in the lore. What I'm saying is that it makes some sense for the gameplay design and maybe that's the reason someone has written it like that.

But we're talking about billions of credits, it probably translates to billions of dollars in today's currency. I don't insist it makes sense in the lore, I'm just saying it's not as far-fetched as it seems like. I actually believe it was happening sometimes among the other races but, due to the costs, only rarely. I believe I expressed myself too simplistic in the previous post.

I don't doubt you, I just need a source.

I agree with you on every point except the one about resurrecting loved ones. Bringing back Shepard wasn't lightly done. It was a singular project created to resurrect a powerful and charismatic soldier who TIM believed could get the job done and inspire others to follow him. This turned out to be true and the cost of bringing back another person just to make someone feel better would be insanely cost prohibitive. That aside, yes, I think it's implausible that any human who wasn't embezzling a ton of money from other aliens just wouldn't have the necessary resources. Though, based on what we know of TIM, I wouldn't put it past him to have tortured alien scientists into helping or of extorting money out of them.

Well, we know corporate espionage is a thing. That's why people like Parasini have jobs.

Having played ME2 last night out of boredom, I recalled what annoyed me about its combat - squadmates hitting walls and covers instead of enemies (bonus points if they hit the cover Shepard is hiding behind...) with their powers (that are on cooldown for at least 12 seconds).

That's another thing about the whole 'humans are special' shtick that was annoying: the Prothean ruins on Mars.

Of course we would have perfectly intact relics located just one planet over. Hell, the codex even says that still functioning Prothean ships were present at the base; allowing humanity to quickly reverse engineer the technology. Every other species, aside from the Asari, had either partial artifacts they had to piece together and scavenge the technologies present or they had no previous cycles' technology nearby and only became part of galactic society by chance; like the Elcor being present within Asari space for example.

The Batarians despite being, on average, arrogant pricks had a point about their ascension into interstellar society. Their nearby Prothean ruins were badly damaged because of earth quakes and so they had to make do with less. Not saying that having to work harder at uncovering past technologies makes them inherently better than races like humanity, but in terms of "underdog" status (which the game loves to tell us that humans are) having to make do with scraps is a whole lot more underdog-like than finding a perfectly preserved, and still functioning, technological treasure trove. This is further compounded when the Mars archives are shown to not only be one of the most well preserved and complete caches of Prothan technologies (again save the Asari) but is also the only place with intact Crucible blueprints.

Whats more, unlike every other species in the setting, humanity didn't have to hand over complete control of their Martian ruins to Council authorities. The Asari are the only other race that maintains their own control over an intact beacon; and even then they do it under cover of conspiracy and generations long secrets. Humans on the other hand can brazenly say no to standing Council laws and get away with it. It's not a collaborative Council research base on Mars that Cerberus attacks in ME 3 after all, its strictly an Alliance run facility.

My guess is that she was an alien and that no one had any idea yet that there was anything worth looking over that made it stand out compared to all the other Prothean data troves.

What IS weird is why Hackett trusts her so much

Stated in the background lore as well as overheard conversations in ME 3. All discovered Prothean artifacts must be logged with the Council government, and any intact Prothean sites are under the jurisdiction of the Council. This means that no one species has hold over Prothean technology and the Council reserves the right to staff their own experts and security personnel wherever and whenever they see fit. 

A really good example of this practice in action is the Hanar homeworld and the Prothean ruins on Kahje. Despite the Hanar being the ones to discover the ruins, as well as said ruins being located on their home planet, very few of them are actually allowed to approach and interact with the relics. Indeed, according to the background chatter in the trilogy the Council races don't use Hanar at all on Protehan sites, as noted when Commander Shepard hears a news story on the Citadel about the Hanar blockading a Prothean ruin being excavated by the Salarians as a form of protest.

Seeing as how the Council generally reacts to such finds it seems rather indicative of the "humans are special" trope being liberally applied concerning the ruins on Mars. Aside from Liara, who was invited there by Hacket, the remaining staff of the facility is human, and more specifically, Alliance affiliated. The only other species to have access to their own Prothean tech, outside Council oversight, is the Asari and they only managed that by secrecy and deception. Humanity on the other hand can maintain hold over the Martian site with no backlash from the rest of the galactic community.