I am not sure a more immersive war implementation would be a problem for the BGS. As CZ’s stand you can either just dive in and pick a side or take a mission for one side. The results of war related missions could be tracked and fed into the BGS every 24 hours. As it stands apart from CZ’s and a few different missions systems in war are much the same as every other one.
I didn't say the war state couldn't be changed; it has been. Several times. There never used to be conflict zone objectives of any form. Indeed, the lost efficient way to win wars used to be killing a single Eagle, leaving the CZ and cashing the bond, then repeating the action.
Conflict zones are now a little more complex, with medium and high intensity zones now offering multiple objectives, such as SpecOps ships (highly engineered killing machines; not for the faint of heart or pilots in minimally-engineered ships!), reporters, enemy captains and capital ships. All objectives count towards the outcome of the conflict. Given the way the BGS actually works (now value-based rather than the previous, easily-gamed transaction-based system), and the fact that conflicts don't actually pay very well in comparison to practically every other activity in the game, I do question why players would grind conflicts over bounty-hunting, if they're interested in combat as an activity.
Incidentally, war-related missions already do contribute to the outcome - if you have to get your guns out, it counts. Missions can always be more elaborate and involved, but given the challenge involved in CZs as they already stand, I'm not totally convinced that they need to be as a priority. Fighting in and around installations would be cool though (although any pilot should rightfully be afraid of getting shot up by an outpost or starport.)
For the sake of multiplayer balance it is important, IMO, that equal number of actions be available to either side, and that anyone particular lever not be overly influential. The asynchronous part of this is important in that it would be rather unfair for players in, say, Europe, to be able to complete all the missions and do all the things while their antipodean counterparts slept. I'd love FD to elaborate the levers that work the BGS, as long as they keep it fair.