The changes to factions and the World in A16 was a huge step in the right direction, and regardless of whether it's a placeholder or not it's amazing. But I reckon more could be done with it.
I think the World view would look more convincing in A17 if faction bases were grouped together. So most/all of a factions bases are located in the same area of the world, rather than miles apart everywhere on the planet. Maybe have some factions appear larger/smaller by giving them more or less bases (and thus more/less uncontested territory).
I also think the AI factions should be able to send out their own caravans, that you can see on the World view, to you and other faction bases. Maybe simulate raids/trade groups/other vanilla events, but differentiate them from the sudden events currently in the game (i.e. bigger groups for raiders but with more warning since you know when they'll arrive, or more goods for traders since they're a larger outfit).
Basically you're asking for events and depth to be added to the world instead of just regions.
Worlds were just released so I'm sure there are already plans in the works.
At this point our own colonies are too small to interact on a world-wide level so trying to expand world events is more work than it's worth.
I like this idea but I think that if your going to group them together do something like what Stellaris does on its galaxy map and make each faction hold a territory in the grouping!
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1sN6LQykAdM/maxresdefault.jpg)