FEI needs more little realms and less blobs like Arcaea and Kindara 
As one of the people who designed FEI, I don't know that this was ever really the intent. In the beginning, there were two realms. City populations (and thus incomes) were kept low to discourage players motivated by that sort of thing. Many small realms can work, but they at least need the ability to build things and arm themselves. There's also a question of a diluted talent pool. Let's say you have 11 realms. That's potentially 44 councilors on an island with ~200 nobles. Almost a quarter of the characters would be councilors. That's a difficult level of competence and activity to maintain, even during BM's halcyon days.
I completely share the sentiment of smaller realms with more engaged characters, but it doesn't always work out in practice. If it could be done anywhere, it'd be Dwilight.
