If my memory serves me correct, the primary reason the grab formula was changed was to limit stocking. The effect was to make people want to jump higher in order to keep the land advantage by staying higher and limiting the number of players that could grab them. This would induce more expense and limit stocking with out changing the balance of the individual strats.

However it is nearly impossible for a casher/farmer to jump to the front and play like an indy player does(unless you get creative). Because, there is an imbalance with the strats at the start of the set and that grab formula change did widen this gap some. The grab formula really benefits the person with lower land now, so if you have a lot of land and stay around people with lets say around 50% of your land, then it is going to cost you, even if you have quiet a few hits on your state with in the last 36 hours.

My personal opinion, and i posted on this last year, the real imbalance is how the strategies relate and benefit the nations. No other nation can keep up with a pure indy nation, and this aids there ability to jump out front early and have someone maintain the lead. All the other pure nation strats have to have a higher tax longer, and in cashers case have double the tech cost, and still can't compete with the benefits indy nations get from being double tax( donation to nation army, and sales from market goods) at no cost to the individual states. Even large multi strat nations can't really do the trick. There were plenty of times where individual state wise people have been able to out jump an indy player early in the game, but the nations have problems supporting that state.

The best player rarely wins as markets, wars, and nation set up can change the outcome for any player. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, but sometimes you got a player who really has no clue what they are doing(although they think they are hot stuff), and one of the things above can happen and allow them to take the lead.