Well, I'm just starting to catch up on the 3+ weeks of internet chatter I've missed. Nice to see the great turn-out for the Qsc.
About gifting techs: Yes, I almost always give away techs on Monarch and below. On lower levels I never have a problem buying the techs or beating them out of the AI. This does speed up the tech pace. Tech pace really helps out for score (railroads and happiness wonders). Like has been explained before, if you actively trade with the AI and trade the techs away that you are getting from huts, then the AI might get a tech from a hut, so (as long as you have the money to buy the techs), you have all the other civs popping huts for techs to help you speed along in techs, like in DaveMcW's game. And it does help AI attitude which I will fully explain in a study I'll post later in the Strategy Articles forum.
Edit: Here's the article for AI attitudes:
AI attitude
I usually don't bother with wonders- takes too much resources out of your expansion. Sun Tzu's is usually the first one I bother to manually build myself. I depend on capturing the ones I want (if there is a decent # of opponents nearby-pangea map). I do try and get some early wars started hoping for a leader, but sometimes wars don't get started until after 1000 BC. Even though my cities were tightly packed, you can still easily get a city to be a wonder-building city by just doing a little micro-managing-and yes, that does cause a few other cities to be a 'squished' for awhile.
I probably had a 6-7 tiles/city ratio until I set every city to hurry up and build another settler to quickly double my # of cities before 1000 B.C. The recently built cities were on the edges of my empire and had a higher tile/city ratio, boosting up the average.
Cleared Forest from Game (4 did)
>>Another strategic oversight, it honestly never dawned on me to clear the game until I was well past this point, reading the first spoiler thread, then I went "doh!". My intention was to make Moscow a settler factory, but was happy to get one per 8 turns. When I saw what some of these players accomplished (1/4 turns!), I was amazed. Irrigated cattle plus game (even mined) gives a +5 food/turn, or pop increases every other turn with a granary. With all the other forest/hill/bonus tiles, coming up with shields was easy enough. I noticed two irrigated the game, giving +6 food, which at first I wondered about, but looking back, they were two of the later ones to build a granary, so probably needed the extra food production.
+6 food doesn't do you any good at all until you get to size 7+, that is why I mined the game. I wanted to work that tile sooner, but felt I needed more tiles mined first so I had the production. Industrious workers wouldn't have this dilema.
+5 food with a granary=settler every 4 turns, 8 turns without a granary.
+6 food with a granary=settler every 4 turns, 8 turns without a granary.
Because with a granary you need 10 food, you produced 12, the 2 food is lost when you gain a population point, so it still takes 4 turns/2 population points. Without a granary it still takes 8 turns to gain 2 population points, and you are essentially wasting 4 food. Those that irrigated the game could make up for some of this loss by working forests or hills every other turn, or to work the lesser food terrain to bring you back down to +5 food. Or in the case of cities built close together, the irrigated game could be used by some other city. Having 2 cities at +4 food (+8 total food) is better than 1 city at +5 food and the other at +2 (+7 total food). Whether you put a granary in both cities or not would change the argument a little.
. Since it is only a theory I'd better keep it for myself so that you not blame me if it fails. But I will tell you if it works. 
Of course, that is just a theory. I need to do a few more test.
