I would argue that the reason we're capped at 9999 tickets is so that there is a reasonable ticket-to-reward-merit ratio (1 reward merit ~= 200 tickets, based on the gold roll -> merit recipe roll ratio) but that tickets alone can't make certain powerful purchases.
Did you know that with alignment merits you can get a guaranteed LOTG global for a few missions' work over four days, all on your own?
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
Yes i like that alot. I just want to see small changes made to all sorts stuff. The core of this game is impressive in 2011. Myself i played from 04 to about 2 year ago. So from orginal Perma Imp Armies to this great game must say its a delight to play again.
I have a little idea that could be a nice feature in AE: "Speak To" Characters.
Specifically, a "Speak To" Character would be useful within an AE mission map. The dialog of this character could be up to say 500 or 1000 characters, and this could possibly be in a conversation format similar to conversing with a non-AE contact. Of course, the map housing this contact could have the option of also containing enemies or not, as desired.
This would solve a problem that I am currently having in my AE mission arc designs. Specifically, if I wanted the Arc Player to speak to an additional contact and possibly provide more advanced depth, storyline, and dialog, I would have to direct that Player to start a whole new arc. This option could obviously discourage the Arc Player from advancing through my storyline and/or just simply limit my storyline. Also, this could limit the effectiveness of having 3 publishable arc spots, as it would take 2 slots to use multiple contacts. Having the option of a 'speak-to' character within an arc mission would fix these problems, IMHO 
Allow more stuff to be purchased like maybe recipes themselfs but would be very costly. Also raise ticket level from 9999 to 1billion. Why u mite ask? Well if you can add more stuff to AE rewards it would be better to have some more tickets. For example allow me to buy LOTG for maybe 25k? tickets thats alot and should cover it.