I think NB is fine the way it is, yes alot of players use this route. That a good thing for Rhienland factions, the other houses are less fortunate.
I think partly the Magellan JG in NY is locked in most servers is it provides an extermely easy trade route between NY and Leeds that causes you to raise cash far to quickly. All of Liberty is unbalanced in that every Liberty system has a Jump point into NY and invunrableville :crazy:
@ chopper: Yes I think all house system should have strong NPC's and Base/Battleship guns. Discovery is about moving freelancer forward in time and restoring a balance between the houses so they may compete against each other. If you remember single player the houses are arranged in levels of difficulty so you have the flawed scenario of the richest cenralised hub of Sirus (Liberty) flying the poorest ships in the game. Igiss added ships for the weaker house to restore balance.
Rhienlanders have it good at the moment, Liberty is second simply because of the traffic generated by it's location but is let down by NY being a non-RP/PVP zone. The other houses need a shot in the arm to improve traffic and gameplay.
If it really grates so much on RM's nerves then you could always annex the Sigma 13 system. I think ayrans have a history of this kind of thing and who currently has the force to stop you? :D