Re: So whats the plan?
Only about half the new players decide to join a corp before they have some experience with the game. Alpha content needs the most attention. Beta could use a bit but for the most part they will get used more as more people live on alpha and find they need stuff from beta eventually. Fix the missions ,make a contract system, allow players to reverse engineer non prototype modules for a far inferior ct. A proto ct requires about 10x the materials and also the research. If a non proto item was reverse engineered only give it 5-10 runs worth. Just a few ideas to give new industrialists, mission runners and pvpers a way to get established without depending on the absolute trash market. Also, cut the t1 module drop from ratting down to .25 of its current rate. Even .1 wouldn't be all bad. Keep the rare drops the same.
There are stories of huge engagements and when assaults t3 fit were rare and roaming was guarunteed to get you engagements quickly because gamma wasn't out. More islands isn't going to fix the problem. More islands with the same broken content or lack of content is going to continue to plague this game.
To get beta population back your talking about reverting most of the changes done, removing detectors, removing the ability to lock stations, removing sparks ... It's not going to happen.