Nice analysis, but we could be playing the vanilla version of the map where the nodes only serve as connectors to get you around the map faster.
I'm not sure whether I like the nodes or not (and I'm Ulm so I can concievable use them more easilly than some nations), but I'll give it a shot anyway.
Now if the Nodes were tagged as victory point areas and the victory condition of the game were to control all of them...
but yeah, that's not the condition