I suppose I could be the leader, at least for a time. I'm pretty active when I'm interested in a game, but I can't guarantee staying with it long term since I kinda got burned out before (although that was primarily because everyone else quit and left me all alone, so as long as that doesn't happen I should be OK).
Monarchy sounds good to me.
As far as the issue with giving out titles and losing control of stuff, we'd have to work within the system. Anyone who wants multiple systems would need to either be the sector governor of that sector or have a character for each system that he was going to manage. You can have 6 characters, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal to make an extra char or two and have one in each system you manage if it isn't possible to give you the sector. We can just make everyone who wants it a governor of a sector eventually, it's not like sectors are in short supply or anything. We'd probably want to focus on a few sectors and get a solid tech base and resources for good starship building before we expand out though.
Also, what kind of race did people want? I'm kinda leaning toward the one I went with last game, the big burly one with 80 hp and max speed/agility/endurance. (15/15/15, 10 str). I rarely carry enough for str to be an issue, but being able to run faster and longer and dodge attacks has always been nice. I played with flying a bit, but I honestly don't see myself using it.