And to this point, again, I would state that expansion for the sake of is one thing, but if a faction wants CONTROL of a station/system (and thus is more ambitious) that is another thing, and effectively builds in a measure of "cooldown" upon itself. Desiring to take over a system when starting as a minor faction in a new system requires hundreds, possibly thousands (depending on the size of population, number of stations, resources of existing factions, and alliance with superpowers) of man-hours to accomplish, and thus would buffer out the time before another expansion can occur.
A smaller system, with one station and four existing factions, might require two or three election/war cycles (most of a week each) but a larger, more populated system (where it takes more effort to swing influence - which is stated to be part of the gameplay mechanics already) could take weeks of building influence to trigger elections/war, a more prolonged war, and takeover of multiple stations before the objective of system control is achieved. (And then the system/faction has to rebuild their wealth after this process to expand again.)
This would really separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to who is a "Power" in Elite, in the organizational skills and effort put forth by the members of a faction. A group of people who are well-organized and willing could still accomplish in days what a smaller group might require weeks to do. It simply becomes a numbers game.
An excellent point I did not address, but one that should be as well. Why expand into a system for no reason? Sure groups may want to expand into and take over systems rich in resources. Perhaps they want to secure a trading route. Or there is a destination at the end of the line. Maybe they want a strategic foothold from which to leapfrog to another system, or establish a security perimeter around their home world. There might be a station or planet they want in a system.
But to randomly expand makes no sense. "Why did we end up in this crappy system with no resources, a single (fairly useless outpost), and no useful planets?" is a reasonable question raised by players. Furthermore, the size of population in a system (and thus the possible value) creates a bigger challenge for a new faction in that more time must be expended to swing influence to achieve objectives. Now we are looking at using the existing gameplay mechanics and logic of the market system to essentially bring "Power play" down to the faction level. A group would have to "prepare" a system by working somehow to become a faction within it, then expend resources to raise and maintain their influence there, then expend more to "exploit" and maintain "control" of it.
Indeed, in the greater scheme of "control" of the galaxy, should player groups be able to heighten security of a system they control? Enhance security to deter smuggling, piracy, or reaping of resources (creating a new challenge for those who desire to perform the action)?
Perhaps a key element of this is for players who desire to be part of a faction to declare their loyalty to that faction and thus be identified as part of it (just like in Power Play). There would be some benefit to being a member of a faction, and the stronger/wealthier a faction the better this may be. They might leave the faction but have a one-week "cooldown" before they could pledge loyalty to another faction. (Can't make it easy so people just bounce from one to another to another.) But then it allows/creates a dynamic in the game where NPCs can interact with players (in a positive/neutral/negative manner) based on something concrete, rather than a player just being a "CMDR".
Logically, how would the people of a system know who is coming in to perform actions there without such declaration? "Oh, look, a random pilot is coming in and (trading/dumping exploration data/smuggling/pirating/killing/bounty hunting) in our system. Yay!" Or there is one action, then two, then a dozen, then hundreds, and the people of that system recognize that "Looks like there is a new group in town, perhaps we should (follow/be neutral/oppose) them." And with followers a faction expands.
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