Hey!
Nice detailed post we've got here. :D
I think you have some pretty good ideas. At the early stages of the game I feel like the most important thing is to add content - almost any kind - to keep the interest of the players. However, it can backfire if they start to implement ideas which are not great in the long-run. Hmm.

Special events, quests and heroes sound awesome!
I personally I don't care too much about casino, but I know lots of people on Steem love it, he-he.
Almost everything what you listed sounds fine, they just really depend on the way of implementation. For example the battle Arena sounds awesome, but it is a bit hard to imagine (as of now) how it will work out.

Besides the things you wrote I had the idea of a player-driven marketplace where people could exchange resources, items or even ships(?). I don't know how that fits into the game model, but I really loved that feature in most games.

I will keep supporting these guys, I think they are heading in the right direction :)

Thanks for the article and the nice ideas.

Edit: first I wrote the post as if I was writing to the nextcolony page. Change you-s to they-s :D :)