I'm going to defer on answering basically everything sov related for the moment, as it intertwines with something I've actually been writing lately. More incentive to hurry up and finish it, I guess. I hope to have it finished today and posted tomorrow.

With respect to "smaller groups", I'm all in favor of my more diverse nullsec in concept. That said, I hate the question - it's too ill defined and everyone has a different idea of what they want. First, what's 'small'? In w-space, 200-300 people is considered "large" yet is dwarfed by (for example) Li3 Federation, which is one of the smallest alliances in the CFC at just under 1100 members. Likewise, how little 'patronage' with larger alliances or indeed anyone are we after? There are obviously large differences between mechanics that we have now, mechanics that allow a 300 man alliance to hold some space but will have them wiped out if their 3,000 man neighbor looks at them funny, and mechanics that allow that 300 man alliance to live more or less with impunity alongside that 3,000 man neighbor. And suffice it to say, the solution is further complicated by the fact that like it or not, answers like "just implement handwavey things that eliminate large alliances entirely, problem solved" just won't happen (said space exists already, it's called wormhole space) and so must consider that 300v3000 example. In any case, I'm going to once again defer until I have that article written.

Skipping industry for now - I'm on my iPad at lunch, and that's a topic larger to an I want to tackle on limited time and a small keyboard I will revisit it tonight when I'm home.

Finally, lowsec resources. Really what you're saying here is 'moons', which are easily exploited by nullsec because current mechanics - primarily the ability to project power - allows it. So that part of the question answers itself, which is convenient because some kind of power projection adjustment is going to be needed anyway. The other approach, though, would be to create new resources which require a local, pilot level presence to utilize and exploit. Level 5 missions are a very soft example of this.

Shouldn't necessarily take my post to mean I disagree, I'm all in favor of more ways to leverage bottom up income, and/or new and different forms of it, I just also don't think top down is inherently bad and in fact ideally, both would be worthwhile.

Something that's actually been rolling around in my head in the "wild ideas" category is hybridizing the two. For example, delete the goo from half the moons in the game (proportional to the overall number of each) and then implement some mechanism by which their output can be increased up to a maximum of double (better still, a small amount above double) the normal rate based on activity and use or the system. Idea would be an empire that was more spread out would use less of their space to its fullest (or at all) which would limit the value of moons in those systems, whereas an organization that was more concentrated for its size would reap a larger harvest... but if you you attack their activity, you also indirectly attack the moon income. Idea would be tying back into what wrote last week - make holding a relatively smaller patch of space an option worth considering.

That particular idea is quick, dirty, and full of mechanics holes you could drive a bus through but the concept is there.