I noticed that at the beginning of the game, the berries are worth more, like 5 points I think, then they went to 3 points and then stopped dropping at 2 points. Weird!

When the berry bush is very full, the villagers gather more berries per trip than they do when it's nearly depleted. It's supposed to work that way.

I thought I was the only one who had this problem. I'm working with one game on hard right now and no one wants to do research...they are almost out of food and I only have about 1500 tech points.

Yes!
There are Stupid Peeps!!!
And it breeds true so their kids are slow too!!!!!
I have one male that I had to drop on the bush 9 times just to teach him foraging. I tried him at so many skills, trying to find one he wanted to learn, that he ended up my most well-rounded male... But when I matched him with my "running " female, I ended up with a peep that is stupid and hard to catch !
ACK!!