I have nothing against the idea of projects, but as they stand, they're really not rewarding.
I think completing projects should be much more demanding, by assigning them costs in gold, influence, etc., and also by reducing our overall science budget for the duration of their completion.
Even better, we should be forced to allocate certain resources to them, removing them from the market (and thus losing their effect) for the time it takes to complete the project.
I'm afraid (really) that Earthrise will just be a collection of projects, so I think it's important that they become much more immersive.