Development cost

[Wizzington]

Development is not going to change from a pure monarch point cost, period. It'd have far too much bleed-over with buildings and would defeat the entire point of letting small countries develop when they can't expand.

 

[Wizzington]

What's the problem with OP Scotland who create metropolitan Shetlands? They do exactly that - develop when they can't expand.
I got your point, and I believed it's the case, so I don't said it before. But I saw in DD today that quite logical consequences of that system are counted as something worth fixed.

Implausibility / immersion breaking. It's fine if an imperial free city gets built up to ridiculous levels since that's at least plausible, but Shetland as a sprawling metropolis is something anyone will recognize as patently ridiculous. It's not a huge issue, but it is an issue.