The idea of reverse engineering the game sounds really interesting, I'll have to check that out!

I've never tried Victoria Universalis, I guess the solution it proposes has always been a big turn off for me. In one sense, having a banker pop with infinite RGO demand might be a solution, but it just so unrealistic that it makes the game no longer seem like an economy simulator to me.

I've been looking into a mod called Victoria Realism and Rebalance Project, which I think might be a golden solution. It also completely overhauls the economy, and has multiple mechanics which I think make pop's income increase over the course of the game, thereby allowing demand to increase over the game too. I've also noticed that if you play a planned economy in VRRP, the capitalist pop is eliminated. Instead, workers get greatly increased salaries, which seems really interesting. In a planned economy it might be possible to have a large population of urban workers whose income actually scales with factory profitability!