Yes, I agree too, great ideas there @OIFEVT101
I’ve thought the same for a while now, but I’ve struggled to think of an alternative that would potentially make a more interesting system to the one there is currently.
Your suggestions actually sound like a great system that I’d really like to play with. Having industries tied to certain locations is an obvious enough idea, but I like the extension to that where certain secondary industries are tied to specific population sizes/types, so there’s some distinction and necessary interrelation between larger and smaller towns.
Having particular manufactured goods have different effects as the years progress is also a brilliant extension of the idea. That would really give a feeling of progression, and the NEED to progress, rather than just the current continuous expansion, for the sole reason of getting more money, to expand more, to get more money. It loses its novelty quickly. Your way would give the game a much better sense of flow over time I think. You’d end up needing to retire lines to old industries as the world modernised.
In addition to that, passenger requirements could shift a similar way – tourism could increase over time, and I’ve seen someone suggest before that an international airport could spring up at a certain point through the game, or maybe expand from a small airstrip over the game, to the point where it became a massively-high-traffic passenger hub later on.