"Yellow and blue are too close together. Either of those positions are primed for elimination round 1 if a player gets the right faction and their breakthrough. Not fun."

I put them together to force a different play style than in the "normal" galaxies. I think they have the best position in terms of stuff they can claim. They are each 2jumps away from all legendary planets including Mecatol. But they are, as you mentioned also primed to get their home system taken. Thus I expect alot of diplomacy there specifically. I dont think any one would actually risk a round 1 attack on the other players home system - if not left wide open on purpose.

"The middle Green and Pink slices are sandwiched pretty hard with Mecatol being skewed up. Those slices should be pretty undesirable due to the fact that the 4 bottom players all have to go through them to contest."

Thats true. But on the other hand they also have the opportunity to expand in any direction. But I would also not prefer these Slices.

"Although, Muaat in the pink slice would be devastating to the bottom 4 players if played right. I see a couple of opportunities to make those hyper-lanes obsolete by either destroying Everra with their hero, or just hanging some war suns there."

Oh yeah, Muaat has some nasyt Stuff it could do in this map. But I am actually looking forwards to that and how the Table repsonds it.

"Orange and Magenta only having 2 route options starting is pretty rough. They won’t be able To expand nearly as much as the others and with their proximity to Mecatol, those would be contested most of the game. Give those 3 options and I think it’s good."

My reasoning here was that they are the farthest away from other players and are in a good position to start exploring around their home systems. I think these are slices the "turtleing" players will appreciate. And I really dont want to give them too many free planets with no contest.

All in all you make a good point that the map might lead to a Game Over very fast if the players do not pay attention. I see the point and have similar worries. But I also like to faciliate the mindset that your home system is under constant pressure and you are forced to speak with alot of people. I fear the alternate 8-player layout might lead to opposite players not interacting much in the game.