The problem with raising the limit from 49 to 100 or 150 is, in my eyes, that it doesn't fix the problem.
It fixes the problem we are talking about, which is that making real life arrangements to log into the game at a specific time in order to have a small battle just isn't worth it, yet the game mechanics encourage small battles.
I think game mechanics should encourage 150 vs 150 as the minimum. We CAN do that now, but mechanics don't encourage it.
Time to recruit troops isn't a problem, in my opinion. It's just the simple fact that battles with too few tickets in them is just not worth the real-life trouble.
An alternative could be this:
All battles MUST have a minimum of 150 troops per side (or 100... or whatever we decide is "worthwhile").
If you have less than 150 troops, you cannot initiate an attack.
If your enemy has less than 75 troops (half of the amount required to initiate an attack), they will automatically lose if you attack them.
You already have something like this in place, I think, to prevent 1 troop armies from wasting people's time, but frankly a 49 troop army is a waste of time too. The minimum size needs to be raised to something worth the trouble.
Basically if I have to set my alarm to log into cRPG at 9:34pm to do a Strategus battle, I would like to know that it's going to last more than 4 minutes. If I log in and the enemy has 49 tickets with 25 players, then, I feel I have had my time wasted. I don't want to set my alarm clock just to log in for what amounts to one round of Battle.