Why techonologies use points rather than buying them Thread - Machines at War 3

At first I was going to let the player buy technologies instead of use points. From my studies of game strategy allowing the user to 'buy' research points doesn't add anything to the game because the user should always do it, because it will always pay off in the long run, so there is no decision to be made, or at least its not an interesting one. I do question this though as its how some popular games do it (Age of Empires for example). But thinking back to playing AOE I don't ever remember not researching their techs because of the cost, nor did any of my friends, you always researched them because they were a huge advantage. Building more labs and getting more points would be very easy to add, and it could be more about timing than cost.

I had the idea for 'attackable' technologies when I was designing it and almost added it to the game. My idea was for each thing you research you get a building and place it somewhere, if it gets destroyed then you lose the technology and get the points back. This might make building your base more strategic.

I like using points for technology research, it adds more strategy.
However, it would be super cool to have every tech.
Maybe if the labs had upgraded forms that took forever to create, but added more research points.
Or like, something like that.
I'm happy with how it is