Average means, that most systems would have the same number of planets, while Varied means between Few and Many per system.
https://github.com/mmoderau [...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - Randall Munroe, title text to xkcd #556
Hey! That is a great way to look at. I wasn't thinking that many, maybe 24 hops until you find that one route that's only 12... the point being, out in the middle, no mans land, there's a good chance you'll run into something and not be able to flee or reposition more than a sector or two. And your opponent(s) will have that same issue. (and I assume we can have badass deep space monsters travelling the void).
But hearing you say it, it sounds like it'll end up being more an Eve game than a space battle... tons of posturing and adjusting and calculating exactly where you can penetrate defenses over days, avoiding entry planet landings with Void defenses and Distortion defenses behind those, and and and... and once you have stargates and transformers, one slip-up, one too far away excursion with the main fleet... It could probably be fun, especially with a lot of players, but yea it seems like it would be trying to make FO into something it isn't.