Coming in a bit late on this one, but I can answer this readily: for quite a while, there were no events on Y world that gave Rogue Hideouts, yet some people had them. The only possible source was DCs, where rogue-related rewards are moderately common. Now, you give Rogue Hideouts to the neighbourhood bully, who may well already have or be working on an Alcatraz, and then the bully starts using those rogues beat up and plunder people to a much higher degree than is possible for a person who doesn't have rogues available to them yet. Now that rogue-using person has more goods for himself, while simultaneously depriving more people of theirs than they would otherwise be able to do, thus putting themselves ahead and others that little bit behind. Continue this over the course of weeks, since some of them clearly had rogue hideouts for that long or longer. That in itself is a snowball effect, but then you add what this person can do with the extra goods gained: namely, spend them on GE negotiations for encounters that might be too tough for them to fight comfortably, even with rogues. This, in turn, gives them yet more goodies to work with, be it units, buildings, diamonds, or what have you.
The overall effect may be small on the surface, but like a 0.1% interest hike, when compounded over time, the effect becomes non-negligible.