As for mercing, we generally apply for FCC because they ask us to, and the people they are fighting generally merc in mass against us
People have to merc en masse against for one reason: you're the biggest faction NA. You guys could, if you wanted (and I remember specifically a few battles early on where I was lucky to get in because you were actively trying to do this) fill your roster entirely with your own faction, even if only 1/3rd of your Strat members are actually active, seriously.
I know CHAOS can't do that or even half of that at most times, FIDLGB can't do that or even a quarter of that at ANY time, Teutonic can't do that, Hospitaller can't, FCC and Occitan
might be able to do that (only at an extremely favorable time for either of them, really), and Fimbulvetr just barely could given absolutely perfect settings. I'm not saying this to call you a pooty or anything, also.
If your faction were broken into it's constituent parts on Strategus (The Kingdom of Veluca, Murder Boner, Hounds of Cthulu) as separate entities I know I'd be a lot more likely to apply for them in any given battle. Hell, I'm in a cRPG clan that has like, four of it's members in another separate Strategus clan (The Republic of Mates @ 9 members total). And those are people we could actually direly use to mount an offensive (we've had to settle for just giving them troops we couldn't use in exchange for gear).
Edit: typo!