I think the best option on pve is simply to make it so only the owning company or alliance members can contest, random people should have no effect unless they lay their own claim flag, which requires babysitting. Recently my company members and I have been out exploring the seas and have accidentally stepped into claim attempts we didn’t realize were even there, much less cared about, it happens, we didn’t want to contest but there it is.
It seems like in pvp the system is fine, but as im strictly pve until they can optimize more I can’t say for sure.
Sounds like they want to pvp, devs should swap their characters into pvp servers and lock them out of pve, let them grief in an environment where they have nothing to hide behind.