Gunnery specialization requirements is what "balanced" that tree against missiles. On missiles, you could choose what to specialize on right away, but you had to train a different "base" skill on each tier for short and long range. That make specializing on a specific group quicker than guns, but on all of them slower. With this so called "tiercide" happening on the gunnery skills, that fine "balance" is gone through the window.

Is there anything planned for the missile skills tree or is that yet another way missiles are being rendered utterly useless and obsolete?

CCP Ytterbium can you address the concerns with the Gunnery Tiercide changes removing a previous distinction/advantage to the Missiles skill progression? Since it's not directly related to the changes to the certificate system, we can start a separate thread, or maybe it should have been kept separate in the first place.

Sorry, there is nothing planned for missile requirements right now. However, we'll need to have a full module tiericide at some point, and this could be a good thing to look at then.

Also remember, training a Tech2 turret faster doesn't necessarily mean you can effectively use it without the support skills.