Current state of the new sectors:
People went there to mine REO for gates, now there is more than enough mined for a lot of gates and many bases get torn down. A few players go there just because they want to go there.
Soon they will be mostly abandoned.
Current state of RE:
REO gets mined and smelted on the same planet and then transported to the core where it is made into alloys, often without changing the owner. A few of these alloys go into gate upkeep or get sold on the CX for the new storages and the rest gets parked somewhere until it is needed for new gates.
There is no connection to the rest of the economy
So how about having an alternate recipe for WCB/LCB/VCB using ALR instead of AST (ratio 1:1) and maybe FET, or a new alloy made of RE and FE. For example LCB is 200 ALR + 20 MFK => 1 LCB. Maybe needing a bit longer as “the material is hard to work with”.
WRH could also serve as WAL in a alternate recipy with 400-450 WRH being used instead of the 600 AL.
As ALR is a bit better area efficiency than AST it could be a incentive for bigger players to move out to get a few % more profit, and to bring live in the new sectors and spread out more over the universe.