What makes you think the Republic ever trusted them? You’re a capsuleer. You should know by now that you don’t need to trust someone to work with them when it’s needed. And it was needed.
Sod off. What made the Republic seem like a backwater was the use of Jita as a central hub, and Hek and Rens having the two longest routes to get to it. If anything, the fact that the Jita ↔ Amarr route now has to run through Hek makes it far less of one.
Yeah, the same as the rest of the cluster has, including CONCORD.