The present behavior does encourage you to zoom in and appreciate the artwork, and I do need good excuses to do that. I really like ships arriving at a rally point near a planet with starbases, f'rinstance. However, I envision bigger maps needing even more strategic viewing. I find myself wishing I could zoom out one more level. I am not sure how it would look visually, and I wouldn't want to break the present transitions between levels. Maybe I could get the minimap type display swapped into the main map window. It could cover wide swaths of galaxy. That could be useful. Spiral galaxies could look real cool.
I like the individual ship highlight suggestions made. I have faith that the devs will find something clean and useful out of all that.