Well, I'm heading home. They have plans to do things over the next week, but I've given up. Instancing issues, connections problems, crashing when you finally get into a group. I almost started heading back after problems in the morning, but decided to stick around to the afternoon meetup. The problems were just as bad if not worse. I popped into Mobius to see if anyone was there, and then started heading out. I got surprised by Globus who spotted me on the map way on the other side of the galaxy and said hi.
Distant Worlds has been great. One of the best things I've done in a game for a good, long while. I've had a poster printed of my first water world (I hit one of those before a ELW) and it is pretty amazing, showing my Asp hovering above it. I thought it might look okay, but it looks astounding, like some NASA shot.
I agree on the weeks worth of events at Beagle Point, the fragmented nature of the game just makes them difficult. Even if you ignore match making crashes, being thrown into empty instances and whatever else you have no guarantee that your instance will be able to organise anything as effectively as any of the other instances.