Because, LATC, with 3 days left in the reset, and needing to use over 400-500m dollars (in terms of the cost of jets lost during the PS and the oil cost) to PS, the land gained isn't going to even make back even 1/2 of that 500m dollars spent.

The 500m doesn't even include construction costs (which would be another 1b-1.2b if you build), and another 50+ turns to build them during which you could CASH instead for an additional maybe 400m dollars (at maybe +8m per turn). If you choose to leave the 5k empty acres empty, the ~2k buildings gained isn't even going to make back 200m over the last 3 days (say 170 turns) of the reset.

Suppose you did build all the land (and have 2 days left in the reset after that), the 8k additional acres would make approximately 650m dollars over 120 remaining turns, with some PCI Booms. No where near the 1.2b cost needed to build them.

Plus, when you gained 8k land, your tech levels probably fell by 2% (say from 177 to 175%), that is a 2.3% loss of income unless you spend another 150m dollars to buy more tech.

In other words, it is a networth loss for you to initiate the grab, and your grab wasn't a move that maximizes your final rank. That is why it is a fluff move; landgrabs ceased being a "networth maximizing move" about 5-6 days ago (and that's only if you grab countries of the same strategy, it would be about 7-8 days ago if it's different strategy).


Note: Edited to add some napkin math numbers.