Generally I'm leaning towards a semi-hard setting wrt technology (general Star Wars/Trek, Mass Effect with artificial gravity and FTL drives etc, but without "magic" such as the Force).

Travelling space:
I really like the concept of warp drive as means of travelling FTL. But I believe there's room for several different technologies, such as the frame shift drive and other means of creating artificial wormholes (instantly jump from a point in space to another).

A warp drive or the equivalent would allow for relatively high speeds and you can basically go wherever you like. If you instead focus on some technology that creates artificial wormholes (instant jumps) you should be able to travel a lot faster between fixed entities with a significant mass or with some kind of arrays/gates. As a drawback you wouldn't be able to travel very fast while in a system or to places where there are no massive objects/gates etc.

Communications:
Almost instant except for extreme distances (a delay of a few hours between the extremes of our plots). I'm in agreement here as well, no UT capable of instantly translating new languages.

General level of technological development:
About the same max level for all nations, with your choice of FTL technology. We can assume we can "bend" exotic particles (like antimatter). I agree with GI, we shouldn't be like goods creating stars, or even harvest them with Dyson speheres etc.

Superweapons:
I agree with Res. It could be like in RL, we have weapons of mass destruction but there is a certain MAD keeping them in check.

References to our canon Pacifica:
Obviously what happens here won't affect the regional canon. I think we shouldn't involve Pacifica more than perhaps vague hints that some civilisations have developed on a planet that could be similar (like how we get inspiration from our RL Earth for Pacifica).