Sorry, I'm kind of new here. Couldn't you get around the cap by just using established money and connections (soft power) to reinforce the influence that would have otherwise come from more guys and guns (hard power)? Then using the soft power, just use smaller gangs as proxies for your larger gang? For example, if the Zetas can't recruit more people, instead they find a smaller gang--maybe its 10-15 people in a particular timezone--and use them as muscle. The Zetas will let the smaller gang operate unmolested, and the smaller gang will fight alongside the Zetas. Sure, you have the potential of the smaller gang eventually competing, but you keep them in check and throttle their recruitment through your influence. That way you have several small gangs representing medium gangs representing larger gangs: it creates a social hierarchy of who matters and who is who, and more vertical moves besides who calls the shots on "the council". It also offers more of a stepping-stone adventure for the LSPD when they try to take down criminal enterprises since they will have to obtain information from multiple gangs to really make it matter. If you want to get more complex, larger gangs can take territory they consider theirs and apply a feudal system: award portions of their lands as fiefs to the gangs that have gained enough size to hold it. This allows you to show a presence and gangs to interact with people through extortion and racketeering rather than just plain-jane robbery.
To me, it seems like there are plenty of opportunities, but I also am not in a gang and haven't had the opportunity to join one. If there is any issue it is that the measures pointed out exhibit a trend of negative reinforcement. Essentially, the server administration is punishing what it deems bad behavior, but it does not seem to have put as many positive reinforcements in order to properly elicit that behavior. If they want people to start their own gangs rather than joining existing large ones, they should make it easier to start your own, not just make it harder to join another. Again, I haven't been here for long so I can't speak to whether they have done that and I am just ignorant of it. Just my observations as a new player.
