The POB supply/upgrade system is very unfun for those who don't like trading. It basically requires flying unarmored 5kers, incentivises flying untagged and without escorts just to move the largest volume of POB supplies around inconspicuously. The supplies themselves are very cheap and hence not valuable to be pirated. The POBs technically foster cooperation but they don't do it in a very good way because it's just getting as much people powertrading for zero profit as possible. Instead it would be best if POBs encouraged people to convoy by lowering the material requirements, making it easier to intercept the supply transports, making it higher risk and higher reward as well as letting hostiles interfere with POBs in a larger capacity than just sieging.
edit:
btw regarding drain on server resources i am wondering if it wouldn't be less if w&t and fow ticks happened once in bulk during the server restart rather than every few seconds