I make no assumptions as to whether anyone has actually read that FAQ or not. I myself haven't read it nor do I intend to.
I pointed you to the wishlist primarily because it is hard to find unless you know where to look. It's also a good way of judging how many other users of the site would be interested in the game.
Alas, I have no idea as to whether it works under Vista as I don't have that OS. But like I say, if you really have a need to play that game and don't have Space Empires 4, you could do a lot worse. Comparing the two, it seems as if the SE series is a direct offshoot from Stars! anyhow. Although again, I haven't checked to see who coded either game so have no idea if they are by the same people, but they sure do feel like it.
As to the question of whether X publisher could end up here or not, it really isn't that easy to answer. I bet if you'd asked about Activision this time last year, every one would have said "no way".
But if there's enough interest in a game or publisher and the GOG staff are able to track down the IP owners and convince them to sell their old games, then yes, there's a good chance. But it's tracking down the IPs and convincing the current owners to sell those games again, that's the difficult and unpredictable part.

Yes, that's why I asked if anyone else heard anything or knew anything about it. I don't disagree with you.
I have SE4 and SE5, and there are similarities, but they are definitely not the same game. Stars! had a proper sequel under developement, in fact it was finished, but never found a publisher and I have no idea where it is now. It was called Stars Supernova and I think later on it changed name to something else.

I don't think the OP expects any of us to be able to give a definite answer to his question. But what we can offer is speculation, based on the knowledge we have. Which can be useful too, because in many cases people here have information that can give indications as to how likely it is the game discussed will end up here. "We" know about the rights issues surrounding games like Planescape, "we" know which publishers are already here, et.c.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with such threads. In fact, I find them interesting, and I'm sure others do too. I wish people would let those of us who like such speculations post in peace.
In this case, the publisher as stated is Empire, and they are already on GOG. Even though, as pointed out by another poster, they are bankrupt, someone are seeing income from GOG selling their games here.
When Empire went bankrupt, the IPs were sold to New World IP, who licensed them in turn to Zoo. Importantly, Zoo has the rights to rerelease previous Empire Interactive titles, which means that they are free to put them on GOG.
I don't know if it is Zoo, New World IP or Strategy First/Silverstar who gets the revenue off the currently released Empire games on GOG, but Zoo must in any case be aware that the games are being sold here and that GOG represents an opportunity for them to recoup some of the money they've spent on acquiring the licenses.
OTOH, Zoo seems to be one of those companies which doesn't seem to acknowledge that the PC even exists on their website. But I'm still fairly optimistic that GOG will get more Empire games in the future.

I guess the bottom line is that those who would like such games here on GOG can only wait and see what the future brings. I have wondered though as more time passes and changes take place in Windows OS how many older games will continue to run properly, and how many other old games will be ported over.

Let me try to put this in perspective: two months ago, if anyone had posted the question "What are the chances that Sierra games will show up on GOG?" what would that answer have been? A link to the FAQ followed by "not very likely" to "it will be a cold day in hell before that happens". The only information we had available to us was plainly available publicly, easily found through Google and all that information pointed towards the great unlikelihood of it ever happening.
However, the GOG guys know things we don't and the truth was they were working with Activision to get a hold of some of their old titles, including Sierra titles. This is the point that seems to be missed here. We can speculate all we want and repeat all the things we have read on Wikipedia and other "reliable" sources, but the fact is, the only people who can actually answer that question are the GOG staff, and they will not do that.