I dont' think we understood each other, by minuses, I didn't mean "bad" features but instead something that has a negative effecton your civilization, Policies don't have a negative effect, thus, there's not much opportunity cost in Policies, if Policies were made like in Nights it would've much better in my opinion.
When I talked about the gold, happines, food, I meant that negative gold makes you broke, happiness potentially creates rebellion, and food starves your cities, not that they should be rid of, but I just listed the only 3 things in the game that have a negative side, You don't lose beakers (most of the time you can have a negative science) and culture always stacks.