Well, looks like I need to start over... Too many casualties on terror missions and some poor financial decisions have resulted in failure!!!
I am not a big fan of saving / reloading tactical missions, I prefer to just accept the results, good or bad. Mostly bad in my case lol
Think I have learned a fair bit to take into game 2.
I have installed XcomUtil which corrects some bugs and fixes the difficulty glitch, as well as offering some nice features (eg soldiers auto-equip with the gear they had for the last mission, worth it for this alone!)
When can I buy better interceptors? My fighters were killed pretty quickly against a large ufo, 1 x Avalanche which seems to miss more often than not and 1 x laser cannon, infinite ammo is handy but the short range means that you get beat up pretty quick