Have you read Swarm by Norman Spinrad? It's a short-story which illustrates some of the points you have made by bringing an alien species that are less individually intelligent but more hive-oriented than human beings into the mix.
Also the book "The Invincible" by Stanisław Lem tells a story about distributed intelligent lifeforms.
Really nice as they are described in a very unique un-anthropocentric way, i.e. their rationality is hardly understandable by the space faring humans encountering them.
i can't seem to find the book by that title by that author.
I did find a book by that title but its 800 something pages long and don't think its the title you referred to.
do you mind providing a link?
I've red a short story that matches the description and the name. Took a while to remember but it was in A Science Fiction Omnibus [0], apparently it's by Bruce Sterling so could be a different story.
