Wow this thread got derailed…
Anyway, my Alpha alt got that mission with the shuttle gate again and I decided to see if I could bypass the gate for science. After flying for a few hours, the shuttle had gone 10,000 km and was still on grid.
I decided to build a special 50nm microwarpdrive Endurance that could do more than 8.5 km/s and put a mining fit and mobile depot in the cargo.
[Endurance, A fast boi]
Navy Micro Auxiliary Power Core
Navy Micro Auxiliary Power Core
Navy Micro Auxiliary Power Core
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
50MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Modulated Deep Core Miner II
Small Ancillary Current Router II
Small Ancillary Current Router II
I fleet warped to my Alpha alt and landed at the locked gate, then I aligned with the gate and activated my microwarpdrive. Then I went to get something to eat…
The grid with the initial gate turned out to have about a 15,000 km radius. When I left the initial grid, I immediately transferred to the next room’s grid, about 25,000 km from where the gate would have landed me.
It seems now that there is no longer anymore normal space between deadspace pockets to create warpable bookmarks anymore. It took about 90 mins to make the journey from the initial gate to the asteroids in the next pocket, which really wasn’t too bad considering how much ore was in them and how many there were. It’s just to bad I forgot my mining crystals. 
TLDR:
It seems CCP has massively increased grid sizes, effectively removing the ability to fly off grid and create warpable bookmarks to bypass gates. The only way around gates now is to fly all the way between grids in normal space, something that can only be done realistically with specialized fits.