I think that a great thing to incorporate into Sins would be that of random events happening throughout the galaxy. Things like 'x' number of planets rebel and join pirates, 'x' civilization is experiencing a great economic period and revenue is increase 50% for them, or space experiences a warp around 'x' star system drastically rearranging phase lanes.
I don't think these ideas would be that hard to implement, even the last one because there is already a random "seed" for a map when you create a new game. Any feedback?