Increased Alliance Usability

Correct me if I'm wrong but the only real use for alliances at the moment seems to be for easy social interaction between players? Which in turn allows them to plan and cooperate easier but there seems to be no other uses for an alliance?

Can we somehow add extra features to alliances that increase their value to the game?

I'm not sure what to suggest, maybe others can help me here.

There are certain tools, that help alliance members too. Such as the connection analyzer...

I'd like to see some better tools to facilitate this interaction. Such as notebooks for rules, way to enforce certain alliance rules etc.

But I do not feel that there should be gameplay advantages such as better ratings for alliances. Some people like to play alone...