I think the map will be fine, but it puts a larger emphasis on diplomacy since you will likely have many neighbors.
I do find the node sites to be unbalanced relative to each other though, some nodes are just better than others. However, I think that just makes it more interesting as there will really be contention over who controls which nodes, and you can't defend them easilly since they connect to so many diverse provinces, and the whole disease thing...
Looking forward to another couple turns when people start hitting the nodes for real
