It's not sparks, it's low population. No ones turtle Gammas would have survived only 500 concurrent players online, yet everything gets changed to cater towards the 30 guys that only play (credit to Rex for pointing this out)
On topic, the theory of 3 terminals per island is good in theory to limit networks and sprawl. But the reality is the best prepared powerblock will simply use this limit to lock Gammas out for other players. I personally think Gammas should have a per island-wide substainability point. Terminals have no cost, but all other structures use bandwidth. The island has a bandwidth cap. The player is left to choose whether he want one massive sprawling base with all facilities or several small mining bases connected by highways. Or something in between. It's called creativity. Something that has been killed in the new terraforming system. Arbitrary hard caps on bandwidth and terminals per island does not accomplish anything .. in the same way the current highway mechanics discourage attempting to build that really useful and long highway from main base to tele. This is based on what. I have read on the testing forums, not from doing things on the testing server.
Devs, introducing mechanics and artificially handicapping them to limit their use is the wrong way to do things.