I think the worst part is that 99,99% of times there would be nobody at the nav beacon, and thus it would just be an additional annoyance.
I'm all in favour of having ways for people to spend more time in normal space and less in SC and waiting screens. After all, nornal space is where we are actually flying our ships, and where almost everything happens. After more than a year playing, my favorite moments in the game are still docking and undocking at stations and outposts, and now planetary starports.
The game surely would benefit from ways for players to congregate. But not by forcing them to go by nav beacons. Actually, by not forcing them anything. But by giving them incentives to willingly congregate at some places. For instance, by giving each ship manufacturer a "home system", where the manufacturer's ships and outfitting had a permanent discount. Or use faction / superpower headquarters (which are now extremely uninteresting systems, with lousy shipyards, lousy outfitting, poor trading, etc) and give them some extra-benefits like extra profits for delivering consumer goods, etc. Give Sirius headquarters a permanent bonus for delivering exploration data. Hudson headquarters a permanent bouns for delivering metals and combat bonds. This kind of things. Bring back the seeking weapons / seeking luxuries for little periods os time, with galnet announcement, at fixed places.
For instance, many people go to Lembava for buying ships and outfitting. Its easy so see other commanders there. The game needs more Lembavas, more Robigos, etc. Rare goods need to be useful again for everyone and not only starting players. Make rare goods allocations vary with players ranks, or make the profit from rare goods keep scaling up over more than the current range, making rare hubs populated again.
And then maybe, just maybe, increase the distance people drop into stations.
