I think the game is uncannily well-balanced for 40, and while it does make it harder to pull off some more elaborate strategies, (1) I think that makes for some fun choices about the strategy you want to adopt, (2) makes it genuinely satisfying when a plan comes together in a 40 VP time window, and (3) the game would have to be re-balanced in a way that isn't as obvious to me as just excluding certain cards. The "You Win" 12 sector card would obviously become much more powerful, as, I suspect, would the arrows, as the expected average number of cards affected by them over the course of the game would go up.
This isn't a bad idea, by any stretch. Point totals and victory conditions are one of the things that make up the character of a game and strategy, and tweaking them can lead to unexpectedly rewarding results. But I wonder if it doesn't also present new balance issues which designers usually work hard to alleviate when creating the game.