I can only reply to the third question. While I don't have EB installed on this computer, I know that the early versions of the money script did give a bonus per city. However, this made the silver/yellow death problem even worse. I am not sure how your solution will help start-up empires but not the existing ones. Secondly, you cannot draw conclusions about faction-expansion on the basis of EB1. The M2:TW strategic A.I. may not work the same, and there are many new options (and new factions) to consider.