What I would love to see is more systems made into huge battleground. Slap good mining field for Miner ID there to lure people for mining only to motivate others to come too:
A variation of that is my pet theory of activity nodes. Cept instead of a multilateral node, it's more like a domino-chain of factions that normally and vanilla-ishly interact. Theta worked fine enough as a zoner-inhabited buffer (only one) between Corsairs and outcasts, just like T37 served as a natural meeting place for tau-folk and Outcasts or as Delta could serve Core/Order/NOM/Corsair.
The challenge is designating such meeting systems without overdoing it like it was done to T23 - worked for Outcasts, Taufolk, tolerably many kusari unlawfuls and shards of the KNF/BAF war at one time, but introducing Gallia as yet another factor proved too much for the rough equilibrum to remain.
Alaska was a good place prior to the recent changes, I mean.. the system connections and all that, plus the nomad spawns are messed up aswell. Alaska had its own unique feeling whenever you went there, now, its just a deadland.