Thanks for your kind words!
At this stage, I'm not planning to expose any gameplay controls via the HUD, as that would move away from the notion of the hive itself being your interface into the game. In my mind, the game is about finding balances and responding to things that try to interrupt those balances rather than continuously micromanaging sliders, but I am open to considering a modifier key that will immediately display the Population screen when clicking on a Nursery, the Research screen when clicking on a Workshop, etc. for players who would like to play that way.