Well its not terribly hard to remember an escape pod. If you have a team member that dies those planet should go indy because they were under that players management not the team. Also its kind of a pain to have the planets revert to another player. I'll check with PJ though to see how he feels about it.

It may be a team planet but it is NOT owned by the team.

The owner of the planet just gives other team members permission to use it and that's it.

So when the owner dies without an escape pod the planet goes independent. Hey they know when their ruler has kicked the bucket.

If you want the planets back for your team you will have to take them.

It would be very, very unbalanced to have them change to another team member. So it is not going to happen.