Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
I like your ideas (this, the future civis, and the techs). However, right now I think the urgent thing we need to sort out is the religious dominance that occurs with a runaway leader in the early game, due to bunching, and tech leadership leading to religious dominance (closely lated but not entirely a single point).
Personally I like the ideas that aiandy floated, with some sort of religion points that build up over time (possibly influenced by buildings, civics, etc.), and must be spent to found a religion ( which would still have the tech pre req as now as well). Build up of religion points would be slowed by the presence of existing religions ( on a per city basis maybe?), and especially by ownership of holy cities. The religion points are a mechanic to prevent one player dominating a large proportion of all religions founded...
I like a more generic religion approach where we sort of go with the Rapture and Faces of God ideas but get rid of real world religions. So that in the early periods your religion matches where you are and what you do. Sort of an extension of the generic culture idea. Then after philosophy the real major religions begin to form replacing the older ones. Buildings would obsolete or auto upgrade to the new religion. We get huge complaints if we have real world religions going obsolete rather than not being included at all.