I don't think this idea will make much difference however if you really want to be controversial then it could be extended into something that really will change Strat.
Lets see how many people I can provoke with this idea
1) It costs 500000 cRPG experience per day to play Strat. So 250 minutes of x2 grind.
2) People can opt out of Strat properly which means they are not on the Strat map,
but they can still fight in Strat Battles. People should be able to opt in again as well, but only after a week has passed. This can be used to cover holidays etc.
3) If a fief owner opts out then everything in the fief gets transferred to that person and the character gets frozen. Meanwhile the fief reverts to neutral and has its gold/population reset. Anybody inactive for 7 days should automatically be opted out of Strat
4) Making money in Strat, makes you XP in cRPG. I'd say that for every 1 gold you make on Strat you should get 1000 XP. So sell 10 goods for 50 gold each and you have made back your Strat fee. This allows traders to make xp playing Strat. Craft for 4 days and you will have 100 goods, travel for 1 day and you will get 50 gold goods price. Do this and you will have gained 2500000 XP (5000000 income - 2500000 strat fees) over the 5 days. Trading therfore pays well
5) Of course raiding can also pay as it only takes 2 days to attack someone, steal their goods and then sell them yourself. Do that and you have gained 4000000 XP
6) Owning fiefs also pays - 20 XP per 1 population. So a Village will only generate 100000 XP and mean you still need to trade/raid. Of course, you will still get XP from making money from visiting fees and trade taxes so you will get a little extra XP. A Castle generates 500000 XP which pays of your playing fee entirely allowing you to concentrate on the more strategic side of Strat. Owning a Town nets you 1000000 XP and therefore pays out 500000 XP per day making them highly desirable.
7) For every 100 XP you earn in Strat, you also get 1 gold just to sweaten the deal and allow people playing Strat to carry slightly better equipment in cRPG. Own a Town and you're getting an extra 10000 gold per day towards upkeep
Alternatively you can spread it around your clan a bit to keep them applying for your roster
8) Since this will remove grinding from the game, troop upkeep and equipment costs would need to be reduced. Troop recruitment would probably also need increasing.
9) You cannot store troops inside fiefs (the pop includes the garrison. This is so that owning multiple fiefs yourself makes you weaker as if two are attacked you can only reinforce 1 yourself.
Overall, the above changes would reduce the playing population of the Strat browser massively and would remove the mostly inactive gold/troop grind entirely from the game. Instead the only people on the Strat map will be those willing to invest a bit of time into it in order to gain the benfits. Trading, raiding and owning Towns are the big earners as they are what take the most time. Owning Villages and Castles are a means to allow you to eventually take a town or secure your clans trade routes.
EDIT: get the equipment prices and equipment crating set up right and people will also be able to make XP doing this if they want to