Dave, you are a kindred spirit.
You uniquely know the problem of over simplification on one hand and getting lost in minutia on the other.

Certainly early on in the universe it is fair to say most stars were born independently and later on as galaxies grew abundant most star birth regions lie within galaxies.


By way of introduction to another view of our acceleration universe,
the accelerating formation of black holes and their influence on the dimensions of space is a reveaaling field of research, and yes I intentionally pluralized the word space.