The micro merge, I believe, was hands down GREAT improvement on previous INSANE situation.
Unfortunately the game continues to struggle and the regions are still too small.
This can be remedied in two ways-
#1 minimum nation size- strict limit. I say put it a 100 users.
Any nation small than that push them into the region and get rid of separate nation leagues.
#2 (which could be done without #1)
Allow people from large nations in that region to choose the region instead of their nation.
Like in the example of Asia, let new signups from China choose Asia instead of China (they still have China flag but play in the merged Asia leagues)
We need more teams in this regions or the game just plain SUCKS