I agree with everything you say! I will implement random events, but few. My resources are limited, as I am a university professor (of politics) and my team is made of students or former students. Feature creep is something my team has to be unusually careful about. Still, I am working on like 4 different places where small events and dialogues can take place. Examples: (1) promote parties, where you talk with the population; (2) visit the adversary city, which would give you hints you cannot win them in a war; (3) visit a local oracle, (4) have chats with Bion, the philosopher (in place of him telling you things you didn't ask).
If you want to check where the art is going, you can visit my latest devlog entry: https://pedrorns.itch.io/democracia-socratica/devlog/455422/evolving-the-art-of-...
Thanks, again, for sharing your opinions about the game.