But people who have no aversion to playing in open should not be incentivised to play in solo/PG due to features being unbalanced in favour of closed modes.
Hard disagree. As an analogy, just because combat players enjoy combat ships, doesn't mean we should make all combat ships as good at hauling as the haulers. Similarly, different modes are good for different things. That's not just acceptable, it's
by design.
If you're mad the other side is outhauling you, then get out of your combat ship and swap to a hauler. Don't demand
they swap to a combat ship so they're worse at hauling and you can keep up. That's just childish.
Not every aspect of this game is beholden to your ability to kill them. That is by design, a design that has been front and center since the game was released. Get over it.
Now, that said, I am in no way against the idea of a place for pvp to be relevant.
For example, imagine if Powerplay Stronghold Carriers existed exclusively in Open, and in order to attack or defend them, you needed to be in a single, server-hosted instance.
This gives a reason for pvp, as you want to either kill the attackers or defenders. It also gives a reason for both sides to want to be in the same instance, since they can't exactly defend it if they're not in the same instance as the attackers. And most importantly, it gives a reason for even beginners to get in a pvp ship, since even delaying the attackers will slow their progress. They'll die, but they'll still succeed better than if they didn't try at all. It also would add diversity to pvp, since it would be about more than just killing the enemy, but also damaging the NPC targets, and different weapons are better at different goals.
This makes pvp relevant to powerplay, encourages open play, encourages pvp, and does not infringe on anyone else's gameplay, only impacting the people who WANT to be there.
That's exactly the sort of thing that could make pvp actually a valid playstyle in Elite.