I concur with your other thoughts as well.
As to the quote, a possible solution would be temporary or recurring surfaces of planets. Once a mining unit has been placed, a local surface of a planet or moon could contain mineable ores measurable to the amount available in any given cycle at maximum for mining units in general. But once it is gone, the mining unit turns off and done is done. Reset wormholes every 24 hours based on individual automatic mining units. No change in surface composition, of any place since Demeter ore distributions necessary. Small server hit, but only at mining unit locations. Removes massive data everywhere and adds to it locally. Give new players the option to Sanctuary to start or buy a territory somewhere.
The whole process would be contingent on current or modified calibrations remaining.
Would need a sort of conglomeration of old and new surfaces, but randomly generating from rare to very rare events may be manageable.
Skip or fix the asteroids.
Thoughts?