Leaving the UP isn't really much of an option, since you immediately lose all of your trade income. This wouldn't be as big a deal if production of everything in your empire wasn't based off of how much money you were taking in. As it stands now, though, I would bet he's better off staying in the UP, keeping the trade, and rebuilding his tech lead.
An update on the "ships with orders not moving" bug: If I hit the spacebar at the beginning of the new turn, then it will go through all my ships normally (I'm quite sure I don't have a ship without orders). Sometimes it just doesn't get started at the beginning of the turn like it should. Another bug, though: The disband button on the Bridge/Advisor panel doesn't work. I select a ship and click the button and nothing happens. I don't know about the other buttons on the panel.
Ahh. Well, I'd like to say you just have to go to the ship list, sort it by class, and go down the list hitting the little disband button on the tiny advisor panel, but, at least in my game, that button doesn't work (regardless of whether the ships are in orbit or not), so I can't help you. :(
You mean other than double-clicking on the ship and clicking the "Disband" button in the window that pops up? I dunno. I'll look, though.
Stardock Forums
I think it should definitely get sent to the other planets that do have something in the queue. If you set the slider to spend x% on military building, then x% should get spent on BUILDING, not x% minus whatever is wasted on empty queues. I do like the work holiday idea as a named option for both queues. I'd also suggest possibly adding some kind of "trade goods" option that produces money for your empire but nothing else.
When I have automatic turn advancement disabled, my ships with orders (autopilot, sector sweep) don't always move when I click the Turn button. Other things update, like time until next tech, and if I go into the ship list and double click on each ship they'll move. They just sometimes don't move automatically when the turn starts.