It sucks when a WX eats gears when it's clear the base is in dire need of a fridge or flingomatic. Which leads me to never being able to enjoy eating gears unless our base is in a very good position. Sure, you can commit suicide, but that doesn't give a 100% return.
Got me thinking, what if WX had a more elegant way to get the gears back? Like, as an arbitrary example, what if eating an electric doodad caused a short-circuit animation followed by the dispensing of a gear (and of course the reduction of both the long term and short term stat boost associated with gears. Maybe a bit more out of the short term stats, just to disincentivize some sort of ouroboros relationship being abused between multiple WXs).
I wouldn't have to be so damn afraid of eating gears in the early game. Sure, I could still die, and that would suck, but it might be a worthwhile risk depending on the situation. As it stands right now? If it's early game, and you eat gears, and you're not a ruins god or something, you're being a ****.