To be fair we didn't have estates back then and I'm fairly certain no oath systems either. Back then you could afford to send 10-15 nobles to a colony because they weren't tied in to regions like they are now(of course, we had more characters on the island in those days too). All you needed was a lord for the regions and you were good to go.
To be even more fair, you didn't even need a lord.
The "no lord=half tax" thing didn't go in until late 2006, I think. Before that it wasn't uncommon for regions to not have a lord. It just didn't matter. The "no lord=half tax" thing went in because it was so prevalent to not have lords in some realms. (Probably especially in those that had voting systems where lords got better voting rights? Control the lords, and you control the votes.)
But the point is that back in 2005/2006 we
did have colonies, and TO/Secede, or just outright secession. And the reason it could be done was that we had enough nobles to be able to afford to do it. Regardless of the mechanics reasons behind
why we don't have enough nobles, lack of nobles severely restricts your options.
And yes there are some estate changes in the works that should help reduce the absolute dependence on having a certain minimum number of knights.
