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Exactly - and I've noticed there aren't very many exit nodes at all, small enough that I can start to recognize them by name.

Yea, there is only about 1000 (actually 1300, I just checked) exits - out of only ~6000 nodes total, the Tor network is actually kinda small.

So I guess the question is, how would one scale the number of nodes? Isn't that really what's needed then?

Yes, and it's needed. Running relays or exits helps the network.