baud
Arcane
IMO you shouldn't push it and if it reaches near completion then you should remove those bars - once the Avatar project enters final stage you have 24 hours to respond and that clock doesn't reset if you setback aliens research. Just try to gain access to labs in regions out of your reach first and attack those which have most progress made outside of your controlled sectors as destroying them will remove all of the contributed Avatar research.
I also recommend making a hacker and a medic from support class. The hacker should do hacking whenever possible as their chances increase if they hack stuff regularly. By mid-late game you will often have chances to take control of robotic enemies and turn them against opfor.
I've not played in some time, but I thought the delay was much longer, something closer to 14 days (depending on the difficulty, easier difficulty = more days).