The Cardassians are a difficult one, as they developed Disruptors, but then incorporated certain aspects of Phaser technology into their weapons. The Cardassians definitely managed to acquire some Federation technology or develop their own variations of it because we also know that they eventually developed Quantum torpedoes as well.
From Memory Beta wrote:
A Cardassian disruptor, also known as a Spiral-wave disruptor, is a type of disruptor weapon technology employed by the Cardassian Union. The evolution of Cardassian disruptors tends to differ from the disruptors used by other races and cultures; some Cardassian variants are referred to as spiral-wave disruptors and phase disruptors, the latter of which refers to the seeming incorporation of some facets of phaser technology in their disruptor designs.
These weapons are available to the Cardassians as hand-held weapons such as disruptor pistols or disruptor rifles, as well as larger disruptor arrays and disruptor cannons used in starships, vehicles, planetary outposts and space stations. (DS9 reference: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual)
As for the 12000 research issue, I couldn't check about that as my game
still doesn't work. God know what's wrong with it. The game itself loads, but if I try to generate a map, it crashes.
_________________"Anyone without a sense of humour is truly at the mercy of the rest of us."