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I hope that there is more internal population shifts. As the world became more industrialized, people moved to cities en masse. The large number of provinces allows some to be rural areas and some to be cities.

The "focus" regions the OP was talking about would be quite nice IMO. The state/region focused upon could be the target of inter-state and inter-country immigration, where craftsmen, clerks, and high-class pops would move to the city (or cities) in that state, and farmers and laborers would move to the rural areas.
 
The migration of pops was the single best thing from Vicky and I'm still stumped as why they didn't tweak this for EU3 colonization system.
 
What I always found most frustrating about migration in Victoria and Revolutions is how rigid it is. The game identifies the best state in the best nation, and then nearly every last immigrant/migrant heads there. Simply adding some randomisation would be nice, so that while most of your migrants might go to Alberta, some will still go to British Columbia. Giving the player some control over pull factors with policies like free passage to New Zealand and free land in the American West would be nice too.

As for penal colonies, I think there is a place for them in the game as long as they are kept to being a pull factor in the style of EU3.