First of all, it is over simplified. In star wars you travel along hyperspace "routes" that have been known and catalog for over 5000 years. as you get closer to the core, you run into Gas Clouds, and stay asteroids. navigating near the core is very difficult, and most ships exlusivly rely on Hyper space beacons to travel from one system to the other.
He is a very well done star wars map (tho unofficial) here (
http://www.pacificcoast.net/~woodland/swrpg/maps/galacticmap.htm)
The NJO map thinks that planets are strung like perals on a necklace along trade routes. and is dislike the fact that there seems to be a straight shot from duro to Courscant.. if that was the case, why didn't the republic use that system when they took Imperial center?
Typicall thetre is a star stsyemm in every 5 cubic light years (big guess, but fair assumpiton) light years on average. Our galaxy (which GL used as a model for the SW galaxy in ESB) is over 100,000,000 light years in diameter, and near the core it is esitmated to have a "bulge" that is 10 million light years in diameter. square root of (100 million times 10 million) is about 31 million cubic light years. that meas there shoudl be about 6 million star systems. yet the NJO map and story doesnt take in acount these millions of star systems. you can go from one improtant plaent to the other, and they all have stright shots to reachother.
the X-wing series did a good job with the hyperspace travel. they plotted a course and had to use minor systems to get to major ones.
From WEG SW, Kuat Drive yards had about 4 adjacent star systems.. and 4 hyperspace routes to the Kuat system. no others. now a good navigator could make a 5th one, but it would be very risky.. the "bounce off a supernove or hjit a stay asteroid, it isn't like dusting crops"
I wish the NJO authoers had more freedom on geography, but is seems they are relying on the dumb NJO map to make thier stories