I've been thinking this for a while, but now that the star system stuff seems to be ramping up... The square grid seems totally out of place to me! I think it would be a lot cooler and more intuitive if they used a radial grid. (see below; yes, I know the picture is a galaxy, not a star system, but you get the idea) Just my 2 cents!
It would change the x,y axis coordinate skews but would pretty doable with right variable functions. You would just need to have x,y,z coordinates that represent the distance from the center or radial functions rather than from the grid. Then you could play with trig; sine and cosine to change the shape of a system. Planetary orbits would be more interesting too being simulated on a radial grid, maybe even easier. It would depend on how the coordinate system is currently written to determine how easy it is to change.
I like this idea, very spacey looking. The internal coordinate system wouldn't even need to change, as it's fairly easy to simply convert 2D/3D coordinates into radial coordinates for the UI.
add on top of that, they should buy the spore music I totally hope they can make some awesome music that will run when your in the space view.
I am sure an aesthetic circular grid can be applied, currently I think we are looking at a literal x,y grid for the engine. Music is fantastic and its only a placeholder composition for the orchestrated ensemble that is on its way. There is a pile of plastic garbage the size of texas floating in the pacific ocean. It consists mostly of Spore DVDs.