Pretty cool, cosmologists are developing the Standard Model for the universe. A while back I saw something on TV that speculated on how galaxies and clusters move. It almost reminded me of material moving through a cell along ionic channels on the submicroscopic scale. I’m not saying the universe is alive or anything, but it is probably way more complicated and ordered than we currently know.
A better analogy might be how kinesins and dyneins move along microtubules to transport materials inside a cell.
Part of the reason these vast structures in the universe look so similar to tinier structures is because the universe was at one point, 14 billion years ago that tiny. (As I know you know.) They all result from tiny, essentially random variations in the distribution of normal matter just as expansion began, plus the billions of years of gravity to spin them into spandrels and blobs. Stuff doesn’t really flow along these trails of galaxies, because of the universal speed limit. Each blob will eventually suck in its half of all its tendrils until expansion has separated them all beyond gravity’s reach. It’s weird that civilizations that develop tens of billions of years from now won’t even be able to see the billions of billions of stars, just what’s in their galactic neighborhoods.
Anyhow, got off track, I wanted to post this relevant bit:
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2014/01/08/boss-one-percent/