Some of the things I think are likely to happen:
(0) Change in how wars are conducted (!).
(1) Immediate speedup of Xboat service and communications.
(2) Immediate upgrade of commercial freighters.
(3) Immediate "great leap forward" in exploration.
(4) Near-term relocation of exploitation-based colonies to more favorable worlds.
(5) Near-term decommissioning of "intermediate" Xboat stations.
(6) Near-term order-of-magnitude uptick in interstellar traffic.
(7) "Interstate" effect on many marginal settlements: "death" within 1 generation.
(8) "Suburb" effect on powerful worlds: ruled colonies become commonplace.
(9) Far-flung colonies within 1 to 2 generations.
0) Response times drop to 3 days for everything within 10-30 Pc distance to come running rather than 2 weeks for every ship with 3 PC of a Jump 1-3 setting. Lets not even begin to think about just how badly a hop equipped fleet (even just hop 1) can out maneuver any Jump fleet, giving such a massive advantage to the first polity to discover hop, that its not funny. Example. If the Imperium is the first to get hop, it conquers known space in a generation. Jump based polity's either fold, or join the new Hop polity. That's pretty much all there is to it.
1) 2 days for a mail order response? So much for spec trade.
2) Ummm, yeah.
3) Hop 2 gives a scale that effectively turns the Zhodani core run into the same effective ~2 year time/distance that a jump 2 ships makes the Regina-Terra run in. Exploration, very big thing.
4) you now can bypass less optimal worlds and effectively colonize only the one that are the most habitable, or the most profitable, and can ignore the rest.
5) oh yeah. Only need the way stations (1 or 2 per sub sector at most) and any scout bases would in effect become more useful to chart/explore all those useless non-habitable/profitable worlds that were bypassed and not colonized
6) after the initial rush of "Firsts" (first to the core, ect) as it only takes a day to get places, interstellar tourism would have a massive upswing, and "space trains" would replace ships with large cabins. More people would be packed into ships, similar to how they pack trains. Mid passages, would probably share a double occupancy small craft cabin, while those of High passage level would get a private cabin of about the same size. However, the majority of Traveller might even be Steerage, and probably just sleep in their acceleration couch when they aren't up and around the common areas, like the galley or bar. Think trains.
7) It is no longer necessary to hit every world on the main. You only need to go to the ones that are habitable (because that's where the people will be) or profitable (Because that's where the money is). Marginal worlds will most likely be forgotten and bypassed.
8)As for a suburb effect, that's possible. More likely though, is an "outback/village" effect. Worlds that would normally be bypassed being settled by people who don't want to be bugged by interstellar tourism, but are still part of the local hop polity.
9) yes. Far-flung, but not out of contact unless they choose to be. After all, that world that's a week away might be 140 Pc distant, but it is still only a week away.
those are my initial thoughts on your questions.
