[Steven-n-Donna]

I don't think there should be any maintance cost for murchant fleets. If it's based on any type of economic model, the only reason there would be murchants is if their were a profit! The 'owner' of the ship would be responsible for upkeep. Unless you got into the different economic models that I mentioned before (example: Communism-government owned ships, and Capitalism-murchant owned ships).
I don't really like the idea that you must build the populations ships, to much MM. What would be next, designing the layout of their colonies for 40 planets? No thanks!
I think trade should be great enough to partially support your protectorate fleet definately. Make it worth doing, not just a feature in the game to forget about.
The population of a planet should dictate how many ships are murchant ships per planet, the planet should also be required to have a fleet yard (to build the ships) and the space port. Maybe even a resupply station (to give the facility more use and importance).
I don't know if I like the idea of the ships shown on the map or not. The map would need some sort of filter to hide particular types of ships.
As the game progresses, I'd much rather it focus on a more realistic game play style, rather than what seems like playing chess with options.
Any and all features should definately be allocated in the ministers dialog weather or not you want to control a certain aspect of the game, some players prefer different levels of control over their game!

Steve