I support Wolas's opinion that reclaiming live units should give you more then 40%, maybe like 60% or something? At least 50% would be neat. I think that would really do in with the feeling of Zero-K and TA in general where you can teleport metal from one spot to the other without any fuss. At least to me that's how making units feels in Zero-K, you're teleporting the metal from your metalextractors to the factory/build place. So being able to effectively recycle units would add to that feeling.
That said I barely reclaim stuff, but sometimes I switch factory and don't have enough resources to really support it, so I reclaim my old factory. Would be cool to promote such dynamic by being able to reclaim more of your live units/buildings. I don't think Zero-K should discourage any type of crazy strategies.
That being said, if it was a change from an older version, and that effective live unit reclaim has proven to be silly in the years before I started playing, then disregard what I said.