We need to resolve this debate on city placement, and now, because in RandR it makes a huge difference. LK, are you unhappy with the results of Zav1? Didn't the vet units produced by Moscow allow the other cities to flourish, focusing on infra, while Moscow defended the realm without ever choking St. Pete, as you feared?
The downside to abandoning cities is losing the infrastructure therein, but if infra is not built in these cities (other than the cheap production boosters), what is lost?
What your analysis is missing is the divergence between optimal city sizes in the early and late game. In the early game, with the despo penalty, without irrigation, and with each citizen requiring three food, the free city square is HUGE. Every city without a food bonus hardly grows at all, and always grows slower the larger it is. In the early game, the optimal city size approaches one!
This gradually changes, but very gradually. Not until Sewer Systems (and even then the pollution can be annoying) does optimal size approach all available tiles worked. Given the knowledge that optimal city size increases, we can plan on this basis to begin with a tighter build that eventually becomes sparser. Knowing which cties are slated for the long-term, these cities can build infra, while the shorter term cities can build the units necessary to defend the realm or fight Romeo's audacious forays.
Complaints about crowding our best cities do not make sense, as when they become crowded, that signals the time for the temp cities to start bleeding workers on their way to disbandment, having served their purpose. Corruption effects are real, but with the various OCN boosters in RandR, greatly ameliorated.