What about an Elite-style ship temperature gauge? As in, where you move in a sector affects your ship's ability to keep the temperature constant?

And that nova sector sounds a lot like the lava level in LylatWars (which rocked)

How bout a sector with a unstable sun... every once in a while, it just goes nova, You warp in.. see a flaming wall of plasma coming at you.. scream, warp out or explode if your battery isnt ready fast enough. :-D. Just thinking it would be an amusing diversion. Maybe make it a massive shortcut between two far spaced sectors, or have something extremely valuable to mine floating in the sector...

Could use it as a punishment too... just drop the rule-breakers into the sector and set the sun to explode. Let it fry them. :)

Same suggestion I made a in 3.1.x days. A supernova sector where the player dies off slowly by burning to death. Half of the skybox would be a sun texture, and the baking effect will make your screen turn redish/orangish like it does now as an indicator of damage. Burn, baby, burn!