I'm not a regular Rheinlandplayer, although i am in the LWB. I can totally agree with what Ben said. The only Jumphole node that makes sense to use in all of Rheinland is in Dresden.
I don't know about the other unlawful factions, but for the LWB, its kind of impossible to do our RP. Syth Foods is quasi non-existent in Rheinland. Only thing we can do is to go and have a good brawl with the lawfuls, and even those are supposed to like us (or at least not to hate us), and the LWB has no reason to look for them/raid military installations. I've had some great RP with the RM and RFP as well, but they are really the only people i've met in Rheinland who actually RP back. And even then its mostly 'we go chase the single criminal with 3 to 6 ships because we don't have anything better to do' with me ending 30k above the plane. Basically, logging on in Rheinland on my fighter means PVP, even if i don't want it.
The trade in stuttgart lives from traders comong from and going to Bretonia. But this traderoute dies as soon as a single pirate loggs on in Omega 3 or 7.
The smuggling routes for the Rheinland unlawfuls are awul. The only good one is the Blood diamond/Slave route the Hessians have (and even this one is broken because it takes ahes to get through Hamburg since the JHs are awul far from each other. The other unlawful factions don't trade slaves and the other options are really bad compared to other unlawful smuggling routes.
The embargo is another problem. Rheinland is supposed to be very dependent of the products coming from Liberty. Being in a region of space with many raw materials is fine, but all the sophisticated tech comes from Liberty and Kusari. Rheinland needs those Superconductors, the Platin, the Superalloy and all that stuff, so why don't let the traders in? Letting them out again is, of course, something completely different. Take an example on Bretonia, they welcome every shipment of goods from Kusari as a diversion of materials.
The mining spots in Rheinland are terrible. Maybe factions like Daumann would get more love when they were actually profitable? Its about time that the Niobium and Iridiom mining gets movet to the Houses to increase activity.
Thats all i can think of for now, there might be more coming later.