Pardon? What use do they serve? Eye candy is the only thing I've seen so far. It's silly to say the game would look silly without them.
Second, random events do not target PQ 0 worlds. They target low PQ worlds. Especially Wisp. Oh, most especially Wisp. Indeed, I've yet to see a random event that improves PQ to target any world OTHER then Wisp until after Wisp has been improved. And that includes in the lastest Gamma build, 90b just published to the gamma testers. After that, all the other low PQ worlds are targeted. But at no times is a PQ 0 world ever been used in a random event that I've seen.
Now, if you aren't for having lone stars, I am fine with them not being on the map. Again, Brad has already stated that all but the Terran players knows where all the planets are anyways. So only put "interesting" systems on the planet, and save some data place. If a random world even pops up like "birth of new race" or "Planet suddenly becomes habitable", simply add a new system to the map, and be done with it. This would make a cleaner map, and stop the silliness of having starships be blocked by "mercury" worlds or having them blocked from star tiles (truly silly, as even a tile of star is mostly empty space). As it is now, it's just silly, full stop.
If we are going to do eye candy, then let's do it right. This thing of having 4 little specks of PQ 0 around a star, and some minor PQ2 world at common doesn't really dress up the map nor "look pretty". So again, what purpose is there in it? None. It serves neither ascetics (eye candy) or a real game purpose (usable in the future). As it is, the less useless worlds in the game, the better the AI probably do. Less data structures to be checked for its plans.
But, hey, I suppose I'm a bit of a minimalist. If it doesn't add options to the game (ie, nothing opens up to use those in the game, and the random events do not use them), and it doesn't add to its experience (ie, beauty, feeling like you are playing in a big, highly detailed arm of the galaxy), then what's the point? Just my opinion. Your flight path may vary, etc etc etc.
