I've seen a number of things written about this, and yes, some were saying that it could be a useful / viable strategy. I think it depended on the game settings, but it was one way to offensively push dominion - either a nasty death / miasma dominion (Ermor or C'Tis), or simply to push friendly dominion so immortals, prophets, etc, could fight there with an advantage.
Think I saw it working myself, but it was some time, as I decided that wide but shallow dominion was just asking to get dominion killed, especially by blood sacrifice nations.
One thing that I
think might work well though - a relatively low dominion on the two nations that can build cheap temples. In theory, Man and Pangaea can pick a low dominion and either build temples in the center, or on the edges.
In the center would, I think, help generate a higher dominion but still spread quickly at the edges. At the edges might spread spread a little less rapidly outward, but could leave the central area at a weaker dominion, for those themes that might want this. (Killing dominions mostly; CW Pangaea might well want to leave it's capitol population dying less quickly, for instance.)
On a large map I don't think this would work so well, as others would build up enough high level dominion to nail yours. On a relatively small map, you might be able to spread your dominion widely enough to have a shot at a quick ending before others high dominion really came into effect.
But that's all mostly theoretical (which some might call BS
), as it's been a -long- time since I took a dominion less than 5 or 6 in MP games, and SP don't count.