Since its release, I’ve been living near-exclusively in Pochven, and was highly active on the Triglavian side of the Invasions (especially during chapter 3), which included a hell of a lot of both PvE and PvP, and helped to advise a lot of plans and activities during this time - including communicating the needs and goals of capturing Niarja to everyone who helped during that time. The lore side of things ended up being extremely helpful (a post of mine) in predicting what actions would actually bring results, specifically with the story-stated affinity of the Trigs for Blue stars long before Ch3. Outside of all that, I’ve spent a lot of time in EVE doing exploration throughout all areas of space (w-space being a favorite), as well as some limited but focused industry work & market gameplay. I also spent a good amount of time in my earlier years running missions - so I have an understanding of that aspect of PVE as well, but it isn’t a thing I’m really involved with anymore.
As for incorporating background lore into any of the things you mentioned going forward, the primary need is to weave in-world context into descriptions or explanations for game mechanics, in efforts to make any new changes “fit” with the world or at least seem to be a real part of it - for instance, I once wrote descriptions for the at-the-time unexplained Agency boosters some time ago in this vein, which helped inspire the descriptions they have now.
Beyond this, however, the direct inclusion of story elements in active gameplay is a hugely vital focus. We already have things like Covert Research Facilities, Pirate FOBs and Sotiyos, and all manner of exploration sites that - while serving a game mechanic purpose - are constructed around a core story element. Future plausible developments like the rumored cloaking changes, or things further down the hypothetical line like Observatory structures with local-affecting abilities, would each also be served well by having strong in-world explanations for their function.
For example, an Observatory would have to be include sort of FTL Fluid Router in its in-world construction, the lore for which already provides a way of its functioning, and a fuel for its upkeep - that being Quantum-entangled 4-Helium, better known in its packaged form as PLEX. From this, a base for the written functions can be set, and existing lore can be helpful in inspiring actual ingame functions or operation mechanics - and this goes for anything else built around a core backstory anchor as well.
Basically, anything that’s added to the game’s world needs to have context for its presence provided in some way - writing it into the world allows it to simply work, so long as the explanation given is anchored in the already-present story.