Every time you remove a faction, is like taking away a spice from my rack. Leave my paprika alone!!!
True, but to torture your analogy, spices that sit on the shelf for too long loose their flavor! You have to at least replace them with a new jar now and again or they get stale.
All the great houses were never exactly homogeneous to start with, so while I don't know that they need to go away, maybe they need to get mixed up a bit. For instance, Andurien cozying up to the Confederation, and the Suns loosing the Draconis March to the Combine. I think those were both interesting moves, but still a little timid. Moving the Wolf EMpire to the other side of the Sphere, while contrived, was a much more bold choice and one I really like. The 'pie' of the inner sphere with the same folks fighting their same two neighbors all the time is due for a change. I mean, when was the last time the Confederation really got into a decent war with the Combine or the Lyrans? In fact, when has the confederation EVER had to fight off a clan? The superpower-of-the-month club centered on Terra is OK, but really you can't just keep doing that over and over with a new name for the faction. SOMETHING needs to happen with the map of the inner sphere so it isn't still the same pie chart it has been since the game began. The Clans did help with that, but even they really just compressed the other factions, while leaving them in generally the same place relative to each other.
I'm not sure it would be a real popular opinion, but I would like to see some of the sub-factions that make up the great houses mixed up a bit into new alliances. For example, I'd be OK with the FedSuns getting cut off from Terra so that the Combine and Confederation can finally learn to really hate each other. I'd let the wolves swallow up the whole border between the Lyrans and the Mariks, or maybe even let Marik space stay a mashup of independent factions. Let them actually be a balkanized region with a very weak ruling family that can't actually control them. Let the Bears cut off the Falcon's corridor to Terra, putting them in contact with the Lyrans, or the other way around with the Falcons getting at the Combine. Heck, get the SeaFoxes pissed at the Confederation, and have them start chewing on the Terran corridor of the Confederation.
Ok, so that got a little out of hand, but my point is really just that I would like to see an era where I can play the FedSuns, and not have to fight Liao and Kurita...again. Too often we just end up sliding back towards the 3025 Inner Sphere pie chart. Moving the Wolves and the Ravens was good. Growing the MoC and breaking up the FWL were also very interesting for me. I'd like to see more of that. I'm sure other folks will disagree, but I personally would like to see the map keep changing. I don't necessarily want MORE factions, I just want the ones we have to change enough to keep bringing new challenges and new conflicts to the table, not the same old feuds as we have always had.