A few more examples, because lists are fun
:
Gell Kamemor is from Glintara, not Romulus.
Even though Mor glasch Tev was indeed born on Tellar, his late childhood on Kharzh'ulla is clearly more important in terms of informing his character.
Elias Vaughn is from Berengaria VII.
Phillipa Matthias of the DS9 relaunch is from Alpha Centauri.
Mr. Mot (who achieves supporting hero status in the second
Genesis Wave book) is from the Bolian colony on Myrmidon, not Bolarus IX (though I suppose Bolarus was off limits for a Destroyed Hometown plot, being - thankfully - too big a target...)
I'm pretty sure I recall Burgoyne 172 being born on a Hermat colony (Amphibalus III?) rather than the Hermat homeworld. And Soleta is from a colony (later established to be Cor Caroli) rather than from Vulcan.
In terms of the OP's Mon Calamari sidenote, with all the Mon Cal apparently being from Mon Calamari itself, I think the modern Trek novels aren't too bad about this, or at least subvert it deliberately from time to time, because it makes sense to stir the Federation up a bit. Off the top of my head, in terms of minor supporting cast we've had an Efrosian from Triex, Tellarites from Mars, a Caitian from Andor (though I suspect Ghee P'Trell was made Caitian simply because his name doesn't fit the novels' standard Andorian naming structure), Picard's old flame at his court martial being from Tellar (apparently part of a multi-pronged effort to explain her aggression without making her seem unprofessional), and, in KRAD's Klingon books, a fair number of Klingons naming the Mempa Worlds or the Pheben planets or Beta Thoridor as their place of origin. Oh, and in the third
Vulcan's Soul book a Romulan spy is from a random Romulan planet rather than Romulus, which is nice.
I see I've fallen into "randomly list things" mode again, so I'll move on.
I will say that when it comes to the subject of overused worlds, I do think the novels have a slight - only
slight - tendency to shrink the Federation down to a handful of prominant members. Everything seems to happen on Earth, Vulcan, Betazed, etc. That's not
too great of a problem, in that the situation in-universe is apparently for a small number of major worlds to be heavily involved in running the Federation and other less influential members joining up for economic or defence benefits without contributing (or, at least initially, being able to contribute) as much in return. I should note that I mean contribution in terms of resources and support - I'm sure much of the Federation thinks that sharing a new world's unique qualities and cultures is contribution enough. After all, the UFP is more or less a philosophical movement as well as a nation.
Which does cause it some identity issues at times, admittedly, but there we are.
I should note that
Articles of the Federation, naturally our holy grail for insight into the Federation government, presented us with staff members and supporting players from a wide variety of worlds and races. And, yes, all members are equally represented on the Council and concerns are addressed according to need, not "importance", but in purely unofficial terms there seems to be a tier system of sorts. There are first-tier members who are holding the whole thing together (e.g. Earth, Vulcan, Tellar, Bolarus, Rigel), second-tier members who seem to be solid contributers with significant influence (worlds like Delta IV, Grazer, Efros, Tiburon, Sauria, Cait) and third-tier members who probably can't realistically give as much as they get and who some UFP citizens haven't even heard of (e.g. Bynaus, Nasat, Delb II, Delta Sigma IV). Okay, perhaps for all we know Delb II is a vital link that holds the Federation economy together, or the prime exporter of some valued commodity, but when's the last time the novels made a reference to Delb?
(Articles of the Federation, actually, which along with a mention in one of the No Limits stories is the extent of Delb's literary adventures)
The novels have called attention to this sort of thing at times, which helps sell it as a legitimate inequity of notability in-universe, rather than a tendency toward reader familiarity that obscures the real picture. For example,
Spirit Walk features minor member worlds complaining that a small group of races are the influential ones, and other characters countering that this is through each member's choice, not any flaw in the way the Federation is structured.
The Red King had a cynical Neyel deciding human dominance in Starfleet and the Federation government means we're dealing with the United Human Empire and Riker insisting that's not the case. Then there's the issue of the permanent 5 seats on the Security Council for the founding worlds, established in
Articles of the Federation and debated on this forum from time to time. Finally,
Destiny even has characters note that once the core worlds are gone (Earth, Alpha Centauri, Tellar, Andor, Vulcan, the Rigel worlds and Coridan are listed as falling under that label; I guess Denobula, Altair, maybe Bolarus, etc, count too), the Federation will likely fall apart anyway, though apparently "Betazed and Trill will try, as will Bajor". That does sort of make sense from what we've seen of the Federation; for all that they're comfortable and supportive members, worlds like Gnala or Nasat or Halii don't seem too likely to have the clout needed to step up and inspire their neighbours. Vulcan and Pahkwa might be equal in terms of official say, but truthfully Vulcan's influence is going to be 20 times that of Pahkwa.
To get back to the original topic, I think that - strangely enough - if the books aren't edging ever so slightly into overeliance on well-established worlds, they're going a little in the other direction and using new worlds and races we're never going to see or hear of again when there were plenty of established ones to choose from. I'm not so much talking about stories revolving around new worlds or cultures (though even there, why invent a new Federation member when you could use the Arbazan or the Kasheeta or the Delbians, all of whom are ripe for exploration?), but walk on characters who are said to be So-and-soians or Whateverrites, or offhand comments of vacation on Someplanet VI. Why not have an Enolian or an Arkenite walk by instead of pulling a name out of the air? I should stress that this is only a very minor issue, but it happens just enough to make me a little wary. The Trek verse is heavily-populated compared to, say,
Babylon 5 or
Mass Effect, but I don't want it to be too cluttered with throwaway races.
