How tech is too tech?

I love sci-fi. Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clark, CJ Cherryh - I was to be them when I grow up. I want to create plausable worlds evolved from our own that a reader can enjoy imagining, but with their underlying structure based in genuine science.

Who wants to read pages about interstellar traffic control besides me? It's an interesting problem, but not a thing many care about. Am I wrong?

I find an FTL dogfight fascinating - so many basic things you couldn't do, like see. In my universe, space-warping drives  too close will wormhole and both go boom. One behind the other will lose effect till far enough from the one ahead.

Mail as the only interstellar communication makes the universe ripe for frontier-folk, for colonies of adventurous pioneers, separatists and crackpots. Chemical propellant is still the most common weapon tech, but railguns and lasers and particle accelerators are only the tip of the alternative iceberg. Modifications of ion and plasma rockets as weapons are very appealing, and though a laser sword is not possible, a supercharged monowire held tight by localized field acts a lot like a George Lucas "light saber".

The problem is that the more removed from the reader's daily routine, the more those details have to be drawn out to make the scene accurate, but if the morning toothbrushing machine is just the way things are done, you don't want to dwell on things that are commonplace to the characters. If they all breathe water, the sign language they use to communicate when their vocal cords are flooded should be automatic to them, but clear to the reader.

How much is too much? Imagine an armor suit with hydraulic muscles, with pressure sensors so the harder you push, the harder it pushes. Where are the elbows in a suit with ten-foot arms when your own arm is only three feet? Is the pilot's arm even in the suit arm, or does the larger arm just mimic it?

Every variation is out there, and showing them can be fun, but the details will bore readers who don't care. Is it better to skip the minutiae that make the setting, or skip the readers who hate such details? Best is a story where details fit and don't bog it down, but that's not always possible.

Do you like sci-fi? If so, is the tech just props, or is it an enjoyable part of the story? World-building detail should be as innocuous as weather. Do you like a story with more than a passing mention of sun or rain? I love weather references that build mood and make the setting real to me. Tech references should be the same, don't you think?