Haha, you should have seen the world when I wasnt around getting rid of people. Scandinavia, The Netherlands, the Ottomans, Canada, some others I forgot were all GP's. I think my brutal interventions really screwed up history, or maybe as you said, improved it to my likings? Haha. But thats what I like about PDM, I actually feel like Im in control when Im the number one, or two or three or whatever person in the world. Its quite fun.
Again, those aren't particularly weird; the Ottos were a GP through the period, the Netherlands have no major reason not to be, and Scandinavia is a highly literate industrial European nation. 'Weird' would be Sokoto and Equador colonizing Europe and China civving by 1860