I know that Spiral Knights may not place a lot of emphasis on blast network these days, but there are some relevant bugs that constantly annoy people like me, who play fairly often:
1. It's great that you want to remove people for non participation, but that doesn't mean you kick them from the match 3 seconds into the game that they haven't moved. Whenever I do not move the cursor etc. in the waiting room I am kicked before I can actually do anything in my matches. What if you implement a time limit on movement for when the game ACTUALLY begins (say if you have been inactive for 45 seconds after the match says "go"), as the waiting room is just that- it shouldn't be mandatory to stay on the browser when all you are doing is staring at a timer.
2. Glitches involving blast radius. This is a very easy bug to test, simply have one player place a bomb on one side of a block and another player trying to run into the block from another side. Without fail the player that tries to run into the block will die from the bomb, as the blast seems to last longer than the block it destroys.
3. Whenever not in the foreground of the screen, Spiral Knights will completely close if my character is selected for a blast network game. Generally I have to wait around 3-5 minutes before enough players accumulate for a game, and I can be concentrating on other stuff during this time. However, When Chosen I do not know when the game is going to begin because spiral knights closes. if this is to catch inactivity, maybe you could wait until further inactivity?
4. Selection system for matches; often the game chooses ONLY those who have hit "play again" and does not include other people attempting to join. For example, when there is a game of 4 people and all of them agree to play again, often if only one new player is trying to join, he/she will have a delayed game.
5. Going off of the above point, not very many people play Blast Network anymore, it's definitely Lost its popularity thanks to Lockdown. I propose you create unique items that require specific play in either Lockdown or Blast Network. Ironically you can play Only Lockdown and use the tokens to buy a bombhead Mask.
Again, I know Blast Network is not a particular Priority but things like this matter to those who play it.
I like playing Lockdown myself, and it's a shame it's ignored in favor to Toothpicks and Squirrel Coats. Maybe amp the token reward to make it an easier to grind alternative to Lockdown?
Or, like you said, more new interesting stuff limited to it. That'd be cool, too.