I think phasing districts is a good idea but only if you can't find opposition in the district you're in. I don't think plays should be phased into lower population realms as that takes awhile the feeling on a live sever.(I also don't like that this would erase sprays) For threat I don't think you should be able to go backwords into servers like gold to silver, but the population would have to increase to support this. I think threat needs to take many things into consideration like Rank, Weapons owned, Vehicles owned, Activity, Time played, etc.
Also what is the reason for not reverting conflict districts back to 50/50 population? I think this would help the current situation on Jericho.