I remember them, and indeed I would often visit the shop of a minor race if I was out and about in the frontier looking to upgrade weapons and armor or restock supplies.
They were, of course, a holdover from GalCiv. In GalCiv, I often trade tech to/from minors to help bolster my treasury. But in both cases, they are a minor distraction at best. I'm sure that a more robust implementation of minors would be really cool. Say, recruit a champion from a minor race, a quest that involves getting some item to the minor Sov in exchange for some knowledge, joining together in a brief alliance to fight against some monster menace, and a number of other ideas.
But as it stood, as noted above, they seemed more like an afterthought than a useful feature. With the plethora of other issues that needed ironing out between E:WOM and now, it was best to just take them out of the equation until a later date. If they were re-added at some point via DLC or whatever, I agree that they need to be much more than just some neutral city that is there just because...
