About the settlements gameplay side imo it is probably one of the nicest little hidden gems in EDO to be honest. The variation and themes in them is large enough to not bother me too much, you have industrial, military, touristic, research, mining, farming etc, and then multiple sizes for each with varying threat levels. In addition, the states they can be in add a new variation layer (active, abandoned, damaged etc) as they look and play in totally different manners.
I think FDEV´s settlements solution for a 1:1 scale galaxy (even if limited to the bubble) is quite elegant and with a bit of hindsight... logical. The solution for solid mission content in such a vast galaxy is obviously not to author or script content but rather to come up with a procedural system based in some authored building blocks that presents you with tons of permutations and action/consequence variations that make every encounter literaly very different from the previous ones.
The stealth elements in particular are great.
Even if you go back to the same settlement the time of the day may be different and your visibility (and NPC detection range) may be different, you may now be wanted in that jurisdiction and may need more precautions and take less risks, the state of the settlement may have changed, the rank of the NPCs may be higher and react faster to your moves, that patrol guard there may be a few meters ahead and prevent you from cloning a scientist ID at the right time and force you to retreat and hide, different gravities will prevent you or allow you to reach that ledge in time etc etc.
Also the way to achieve your goals is quite broad, cloning ids, arc cut, gun them all down, follow a LVL2 NPC along its patrol inside a building etc. All these actions have reactions that can be countered etc turning these settlements into really cool puzzles to unravel that allow for tons of creativity, especially when in a wing, and every time the combination to get there will be different and force you to adapt. They have significant replayability imo.
I think it is probably one of the best solutions for content in a 1:1 scale galaxy, and FDEV have delivered it very elegantly, imo, especially when we consider it all is integrated with the BGS.