Yes, I also thought a little about how it would be if we had really dangerous NPC pirates in the CG system, those hard-engineered ones from Pirate Activity threat level 5 - 7 and even Pirate Lords with their wings. And they attack very often on the way to Musashi.
This would, on the one hand, motivate many players to play in open and create teams to have a much better chance to survive and also create a great, lively atmosphere in Xi Wangda system, similar to the Thargoid Invasion systems, (which currently do not exist); but on the other hand, it would also mean that many players, who don't have ships ready for heavy battles, or don't have experience, or simply don't like combat, would immediately give up on such a CG. So, it's hard to say which is better - this kind of boring CG with many players, or much more difficult and risky, but also far more interesting CG, with fewer players?
It is even questionable whether there would be fewer players, because it seems to me that in these current CGs the number of participants are not very high anyway.