Well, Terok Nor was established to be a mining station, with much of its structure dedicated to ore processing and loading. So Cardassians would only have built those where they actually conducted mining operations. Or more probably they would have towed such stations to locations where mining was done - apparently Empok Nor sits nowhere near a mine, or near anything else for that matter, and thus probably was towed there from some more significant location. Possibly Empok Nor orbited another world that the Cardassians had to abandon, and pehaps they had learned from their Terok Nor debacle and did not willingly leave another station behind.
When Cardassians withdrew from Bajor, they were probably in a state of deep denial. Episodes like "Cardassians" and "The Maquis" reveal that the withdrawal was dictated on Central Command by the civilian government, supposedly the Detapa Council. It would only make sense that Gul Dukat would think that he'd be returning to the station in a week or two, and would continue the task of subjugating Bajor with renewed vehemence. There would be no motivation for him to blow up his own station - and even if regulations dictated or his superiors ordered the self-destruct, he would rebel and refuse, placing his bets on the Central Command eventually triumphing over the Detapa wusses.
So there'd just be some minimal vandalism inside the station, plus disabling of the combat systems, not a self-destruct.
I thought it cool that the existence of lingering security systems was used as the basis of an entire episode, "Civil Defense". No doubt Dukat had a few duotronic flies on the walls, too, considering how much good intelligence he always had on Sisko's doings.
Timo Saloniemi
