Actually, that might not work, because you end up with no technology and get folded by xenophobes if you don't manage to draw defense stations in the tech draw before you're at a stand-still.
Technology doesn't really matter when your empire is several times larger than any other empire. What matters is the size/power of your fleet, and your mineral production. If Paradox managed to do something in their space 4X, it's dethroning King Technology. If you manage to spam colonies on half the map in a tiny galaxy while not being stuck between two Fallen Empires, you'll just need a few little wars and you've won, even if your science is at an abysmal level.
And defense stations... I don't even understand how not having them would be such a problem. They're a good way to reduce chasing time when using hyperlanes, but it's only a matter of time.
It's a bit the same thing with FTL type. What matters the most is not which one you use - it is, ultimately, your fleet power.
In order to see what the differences are between different playstyles that are all totally viable in solo, we need to play in multiplayer. Because the problem is not the
viability of a chosen playstyle, it's
balance.
You can totally play with unimproved iron daggers in Skyrim until the end of the game. You can totally play in Stellaris with a fanatic pacifist & xenophobe repugnant species, using hyperlanes and spamming colonies on size 12-or-less planets, ending with horrific science malus. It doesn't prove that pacifism or hyperlanes are not underpowered, or that little worlds are really worth colonizing (even if I wouldn't be as radical as other players about them).
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