Hey, it does work, kinda. I used orodum's short jump idea during a multiplayer game with one of my friends. It was a small map, with only like ten planets.I sent out a big fleet, and it took them like a half an hour to get close to his capital. Then, i phase jumped them in. Worked perfectly, his home fleet was gone. Never saw it coming. A lot of effort, but a lot of gain.
I hope stardock does make an expansion with much larger gravwells, so that like Virilias said, it would be more focused on strategy. I suppose you could do it on galaxy forge, but too much effort for me.
And yeah, flying between stars is just dumb. Too long, too pointless, and also, sometimes stars are above or below the ecliptic. That could screw you up. Sins isn't like Homeworld, where you can fly up and down (unless it is, and i'm a giant noob (which i doubt).
Maybe later i'll try flying all the way, and see if that works.