Assembly Hall

One element of EVE that differs from most other popular MMOs (besides older stuff like UO) and makes it stand out is that almost everything can be destroyed. While this is mostly what makes EVE great and refreshing (at least for me) this has some disadvantages.

Player corporations: All this stuff with intel, spies and disbanding of corporations makes a lot of players risk averse (me included). Not to mention the disappointment and other negative effects the crushing of a flourishing corporation/alliance has for its player and community around that corp/alliance. The current corporation/alliance system is also much too rigid in my opinion, because there are not enough tools or too complicated tools to handle (as far as I can tell from what I read and seen myself in game) these entities. E.g. you cannot trade shares for a corporation, just to mention a topic currently discussed somewhere around here.

Further, there is a slight asymmetry in how NPC and player corporations play out: You cannot "work" for a player corp, you are only a member, but at the same time you can work for several NPC corps but cannot be member of most NPC corps. While this is actually not a problem, this gave me the following idea:

Suggestion
Separate player corporations from player groups/communities. Transform what are now player corporations and alliances into something similar to what in most other MMOs guilds, clans, whatever you like to call them are; lets say groups and alliance (several groups in one alliance, to keep the two-tiered system) so alliance stays pretty much the same.

But: Change player corporations so that you cannot be a "member" of that corp. Make them more like entities players can fight over in various ways. Corporations own assets like ships and stuff. I would even go so far that only corporations can own larger assets like stations and capital ships (so no privately owned titan) and only authorised players (individuals, groups or alliances per access controls) can get access to these assets in varying degree.
Further, only corporations can own space (sovereign null).

Corporations can have possibly different modes of administration (how many people are in charge of administrating which corp assets). In case the corp is not privately owned, shares can be sold on the market. Possibly offer different types business models suitable for different sizes and operations of corps. A high-sec mining corp won't need much assets besides corp-owned Orcas and therefore not much to administrate. A null sov holding corp with cap fleets and stuff will need much more administrative tools.

This will open many more possibilities for content creation. Your player group can try to buy out certain corporations via the shares, or take it over by force, or add even other possibilities, drive them off the market so that the corp goes bankrupt, etc. Set up goals for a corporation, let shareholders vote for what the corp should do to make profit if it is a for-profit corp, let the shareholders receive dividends, etc. Since by destroying a corp you no longer also destroy a player community I imagine there can be much more flux in the corporations landscape, space and assets can more easily change hands because there could be several different methods how corp assets and corps themselves switch owners, trading caps can be easier, etc.

As a player group you would no longer own space directly as it is now, you would have interest in corporations your group has founded or taken over that could own space. The threat of spies is somewhat reduced to a level where it is not something that can destroy a whole community but still remain as an option to "steal" assets und thus is more incorporated into the gameplay.

Please discuss.