If this topic can make 3 pages of positive responses and/or another 30 odd likes... I will be posting it over in the Assembly Hall with some additions.

Then spam every PI alliance in Eve hoping to garner enough support to push it to the top of the next CSM refocus list.

The idea keeps the simplicity you currently use, but adds much more depth to those wanting more from planets (as was advertised with the original launch of Tyrannis).

Also, technically, how do customs offices get into wormhole space? They shouldn't exist either...

But I don't see why population centers couldn't develop in wspace.

Nice ideea about the PI , not so thrilled about all the planetary stargate thing tho, would make a preaty big part of eve mecanics useless ( cyno, titan bridge , the use for carriers to move ships to campaign locations and not to mention the clone jumping).
However, the dust interaction to eve requires that PI neads this 'upgrade' or at least something verry similar.
But... for it to be desired and rly have a positive impact in eve , other then creating another gaming world within the eve universe limited to only players that are borred of spinning the ship in hangar and influenced only by those with dreds/titans, the majority of eve players must have a benefit if not a need for it...... and for that i have a thought...
As the development of planet colonies/cities wil require and deal with planetary population, development indexes, growth and soo on, why not also add a more direct interaction to the curent eve gameplay and also populate that witch eve players play with mostly .... like the ships ?!...
A ship just bought to have a volunteer crew untrained and soo unable to bring the ship to full atributes (like only 75% shield/cap recharge and maby even cpu/powergrid reduction , say only 95% ).
A player or member of corp/ally that manages planets to be able to train on civilian flight academy structures ship crews of diferent competence lvls up to say lvl5 on a fully upgraded academy ( maxed crew to bring a ship to +125% ship shield/cap regen and say 105% cpu/powergrid), and be able to sell the trained personel to other players visiting the planet. Limiting access to the planet via personal/corp/ally standings like stations in 0.0 do atm and also have every purchase of crew take the nr from planet population so unable to hire the compleate crew for say 2 titans from 1 planet.
This would add the new crew nr and crew competence attributes to all ships in eve, i'm tinking most players in eve wanderd why the ships have soo many lights/windows on them if only the own character is inside no ? :)

How do these mini games tie into the general EVE experience? :) Dont you think its a little too NPC and singleplayer oriented?

regardless of the op's suggestions PI really does need iteration because its boring. minigame is a lie.