Am I the only person who thinks the current 'longest line' trade route mechanic is highly illogical? If you were running your own trade network, would you find it profitable to force trade goods to travel a huge distance out of their way, or would it be better to encourage the free flow of goods from their source to their market in the most efficient manner?

It seems to me like the linear trade route value calculation is itching for re-work. It would not be hard to come up with a mechanic that rewarded players for building a large trade network, without the artificial need for a pathing algorithm to determine its worth. Wouldn't it be both simpler, and more logical, if every system with a trade port in it incrementally added to the total value of your trade network? Or, even more realistically, each phase jump route connecting affiliated trade ports should add incremental value to the full route. And if you really wanted to get hyper-realistic, you'd make the calculation based on the number of citizens downstream from each individual phase jump route, relative to each trade port, so that a trade port that sits astride a nexus between many populated worlds would be hugely profitable, and one that's in an isolated backwater wouldn't be very profitable at all. Though I'm sure such a system would be very un-intuitive, and probably computationally expensive to boot.

After all, you'd think a trade hub which served many adjacent systems would be MORE valuable as an asset, not less. Is there any chance the developers might look at adopting a more sensible algorithm?