The only crappy part about crime is that it ties you to your fief. Most of the active players are stuck baby sitting their fiefs instead of fielding armies. I think you should be able to manage your fief from anywhere on the map; just you won't be take goods, money or gear out. But you should be able to transfer stuff to people in the fief.
Being tied to your fief prevents over-extension, which was a pretty big theme in Warband. If you had too many fiefs and not enough lords, or your lords were all captured, you had less standing armies to defend castles.
I think that factions should be limited to something like 15 players. The mercenary pool should then become a true mercenary pool, meaning mercenaries sign up for battles, not sides. Mercenaries are then distributed evenly, but given actual good rewards to encourage not griefing their team. This is really the only way to prevent super blocks.
LOL that's a stupid theory, as the larger faction will just take it back when ever they feel like it and helps the larger factions a lot more. Good chance what you call "poorly managed" is deliberate tactic from the larger faction anyway as even if you take the fief you cant build an army in there. in the end you just take a fief that cant be manned. Crime is a lame mechanic at the rate it affects.
Your entitled to your opinion, but in my opinion your theories are flawed, baseless and pathetic.
I mean, I've used crime to take multiple fiefs, and I've never had a city or castle taken from me, except the ones I sold for loom points. I don't overextend my faction, and I put people in charge who are competent. If I want to take a fief with crime, I may work down the S&D ahead of time, if I can confirm that the owner is AFK, or I may raid him, so he might not be able to put up a good defense. It's called
strategy, which I use in
Strategus.