Nope, no custom systems. And ya, I do have black holes in this game. I just lost a ship to one.

Center Mass. Look around, there there.
And a game with 200 plus systems is not about whooping it up with the AI, its about exploration and the undiscovered country. I love exploring and slowly building up my empire. Hell, the Last game I played, the AI (EA) player had just as large if not larger empire than I did, and it kicked my butt all the way back to my core systems before I started blowing up starts to stop there advance. I then spent the next 16 hours of game play slowly out manuvering them until I had them boxed into 50 systems. One by one, I entered each system and took there planets. Shutting off the WP's as I did it. I eventually asked them to surrendar, and they did. END GAME. That game took over 30 hours to play.