Disagree on LMDs being the answer. The actually useful LMDs end up on the bigger/elite teams. Because they're not going to play for a smaller team or a rim team. The main issue with a smaller team or a rim team is that there's no rim and less players. The teams have been more or less set for a few years and if you're a new player trying to break in then there's no real place for you that has a shot. The map is getting smaller and its largely doing so because Inno doesn't put effort into growing the base.
The thing that's starting to piss me off about these updates is that none of them address this issue. Inno is just yeeting poorly planned updates into the game that sounded cool in a board meeting and hoping it maintains what they have, which its not. When it doesn't immediately work out on the first try, they move onto the next poorly planned update.
If you actually want smaller, newer, and/or late joining teams to compete. Then Inno needs to actually advertise the game and Inno needs to completely change the opening stages and midgame stages of the world so that its new/casual player friendly. This would also require the established fanbase of this game to accept that the start of the world will probably be less exciting.