Edit: I don't agree with the poster who says it is unbalancing though. It *is* a tradeoff in it's current state.
Really? What's the tradeoff? If you don't have it, you are disadvantaged. If you have it in substantial quantities, sage/libs are overpowered. etc.
Are you kidding me? What kind of nonsense is that? Of course if you don't have it you're disadvantaged - but everyone has the ability to get it, so we're all in the same boat. By your logic, Armies are overpowered. Take your statement, and insert Army for Science:

If you don't have an army, you are disadvantaged. If you have an army in substantial quantities, [warrior/TGs] are overpowered.

Sheesh. Your argument makes NO sense ;)

Why wouldn't this make extreme more profitable? Keep it on extreme for a month, and it would go up to 9+ books/hour? You just made the gap larger, not smaller.
Who can run Extreme for a month? Extreme is over 4x my current income, and I don't think I have a bad economy. I make $67k/hour at 2200 acres. The point is that you CAN'T run Extreme for a month, and so it would discourage running Extreme for short periods, because you'd lose your "Active" bonus.

I'm not saying my suggestion is great ... it was just something I came up with off the top of my head to maybe get discussion rolling. I'm not in love with it, and I'm sure it has flaws. But your suggestion of getting rid of science because it's "overpowered" is much, much worse.