I've got to agree with you. I'm playing in a big BB country, so I don't know what it's like to be in a small one. But I'm pretty sure that this game would be very less interesting to me if I hadn't the same amount of competition.
In my opinion, there's no wonder why small BB countries always have the same amount of users: people don't stay because of the lack of competition.
There's a lot of good ideas in your different posts!