Looking at the path Voyager took home (as shown above, and I believe Graham copied the path from a display shown in astrometrics once) there are several strange points.
Firstly is the path taken. It curves around the core rather than through it. Now you could say that the core is dangerous to go through so they go around it. But it is shown that starships can infact get to the core. Eye balling it from their estimate of a 70 year journey going the long way seems to add about another 10 years.
Maybe Janeway made a choice to avoid it to avoid any possible problems involved in that area of space.
Secondly is the fact that she went to the right of it rather than over it. Now granted we can't see 3D but from in show it seems they stayed in the center on the vertical axis.
Thirdly is the amount of cultures they encountered. Now this isn't really a point about the path so much as a pet peeve of mine.
In our section of the Galaxy there are 3 powers (Feds, Klingons, Romulans) who's territory covers over 1 years worth of travel time at least, and several powers who are several months.
But Voyager hardly ever comes across a species that seems to control more than a few light years of space, a week or two of travel at the most.
The only ones I can think of are the Hirogen who don't really control territory so much as just move around, the Kazon, the Borg who don't really count, and the Krenim Empire from year of hell.
There are species with technology far in excess of the Federations yet only seem to control a few systems. That species with the super technology that could have transported them home comes to mind.
It's not a big deal but annoying as I feel it would have added to the show to establish a few species well rather than have the aliens of the week.
