Takes more time to transit through a single gate, than jump from one system across many others to a cyno.
The entire mechanic is full of fail and not only shits on in-system aggression/gate camps, but makes leapfrogging over LS and other potential risk trivially easy.
I would say most roams start in a trade hub of a kind - you need to get the ships and stuff somewhere. We typically started in Villore. Easy to get all the ships needed and next to action. Anyway, after 5 jumps everyone knows where you are all the time
Obviously if you have an industrial friend/alt that could build you the required fleet and modules (or haul it using JF) you could start just about anywhere, as long as said friend can also haul those pesky T1 meta items from trade hubs to the staging system.