I like this idea and I'll add that I'd like to see more debris from cap ships exploding as well. With, of course, the appropriate graphical toggles to turn the additional debris on and off. More eye candy(that can be turned off as needed) is never bad.
Something I'd love to playtest: debris the starbase has a limited gameplay affect. Something similar to the asteroid belt passive effect of -25% chance to hit or whatever it is, but with a time limit, say, 2 minutes? Reduced time limit if the Vasari researched that auto-salvage tech.