Hmm those buffs could be good if handled well.

I like your idea for organised retreat in the case things go sideways.
There's also another thing, the Federation army is mainly a counter insurgency force and not so much a full scale invasion force.
Their job is mainly to deter organised rebellion and not so much fight battles on alien worlds (though they could if they wanted to (probably would be quite outmatched by stronger warlike aliens though.))