I'm a big advocate of ruthless newbie growth.
Always search a player's name and corp in the friends list tab to see how much heat they're packing and if it would be a mistake to hit 'em. In my opinion, any [SOL] or corp-less player who still has modules and stations still in sector (0,0) after the newbie protection has run out is fair game for other new players to take advantage of.
Of course, if you want to be a nice guy you can always message the owner to see if they are still active. If you don't get a response in a couple of days you have your answer!
I like this game as a small community. Sir Emi does not do enough to support it to make it viable for more players (at least not now). If I had to compete with more people for all the good missions I would grow at half my current rate and would probably get much more bored.
HOWEVER... I would like to see a lot more corp competition and meaningful sorts of military developments. I want there to be more mid-level players to compete and grow with each other and to make their own corps that specialize, bicker, and make the game more interesting.
Capitalize on it by making friends and networking