Topic: Keep the Merger the way it is!!
It will be a nice refreshing change.
People would need to develop new stratz, none of which would be the perfect, refined ones like we have in the IC we play now. Attackers would have vast playing fields to skirmish, more effort could be put into making solid and perfect cores instead of worrying about the fam 2 ticks from your HS.
Having things so vast will completely change the way the game is played, and would make it more 'realistic' (empires would never have boarder clashes in the huge expanse of a galaxy). Hell. I say have 6k systems, and have them well spread out!
This sort of change will keep people interested in the game. It's not a horrendous idea that's going to kill IC. It's a new step. I've heard it was done before years ago with bad results...but that was years ago..when everyone was still developing their perfect stratz for the current IC.
Damn all you f00ls set in your ways X(!