Banana, you can't make trade ships equal to combat ships, unless you want everyone in the exact same ship? It simply doesn't work otherwise, so the traders will always be at a disadvantage to the combat ships. The meta can be changed every day, it won't change this simple fact.
As to pirates...
Funny thing about stealing, it's not a positive social interaction no matter how hard you try and make it one. It's a negative social interaction, you are taking something from someone else without their permission, be it through guile, stealth or force. Thieves aren't good guys, murderers aren't good guys, that's not how that works. I've been the bad guy a lot in online games, I enjoy it, it's fun to RP as the bad guy instead of the good guy, doing whatever strikes my fancy whenever it strikes and to hell with the consequences. I make no bones about it, I try to not outright grief people, I don't go after newbies, I don't kill someone repeatedly just because I can, and I'll let people go if they ask nicely...sometimes. I'm fully aware that my actions are anti-social however, and every now and again, I reinforce that through mindless destruction, killing someone after they've complied, or just killing them without asking for anything, because I am the BAD GUY!
Some people like being the victim once in a while, it's thrilling, it's exciting, gets the blood going, but you know what? They don't want to be the victim multiple times, it's not THAT fun after a few times. And the folks who think being the victim is fun usually stop thinking that when they end up looking at a rebuy screen at the end of the victimization. Some will want revenge, it gives them something to DO in the game suddenly, something new. But most folks just don't like it, it's not fun.
I'm aware of these things, I've been the bad guy, the good guy and the victim, and I never enjoyed being the victim all that much. Bad guys, well, when I'm playing them, I'm fully aware of the fact that I will be griefing other players at some point during our interactions, I'm the bad guy after all. Pirate, well, MOST of my interactions with other players will involve me griefing them in some fashion, stopping them without cause, taking their stuff without paying for it, killing them, taking them prisoner, ransoming them or selling them into slavery, yeah, NONE of those are positive social interactions, those are all grief causing actions. It doesn't matter what you say, how polite and nice you are, it's still grief causing actions.
And how much I made as a pirate, I'm not the first nor the last to say 3-5m an hour off NPCs, and that was pre 1.4, when we couldn't disable a ship by taking out it's power plant and before they upped the cargo NPCs carry. You interdict, scan the cargo, take it, sell it, profit, pure profit after the first victim or two. You don't go hunting down players, you take cargo ships, simple as that, ignore the rest, they aren't worth your time if you want to make a profit. Add in the occasional bounty on NPCs who belong to minor factions you don't support, it's easy, it's about as risk free as you can get, and it's boring as hell, not as boring as pure trading mind you, to me, but at the time I was doing piracy, I wasn't in a ship big enough to make more trading than I did pirating, so... It's profitable, it's risk free, and I didn't need human players to make it profitable, those saying they NEED human players to make a profit...well...already made my view on that clear.
As for my views on PvP, that has nothing to do with piracy, piracy isn't PvP, it's stealing by force or threat of force. PvP is where people WANT to fight each other, and I'm all for that, and I keep pointing out that anyone who actually wants PvP can get it all day, every day, by joining one of the many PvP groups in Elite: Dangerous. They just completed the first player run team vs team league and are about to do another one, and are looking at doing a 1v1 league as well. You want PvP, that's where you go, you don't become a pirate, especially not in a game where the odds of seeing another human player are on par with getting hit by lightening or having a supermodel ask you on a date.
Piracy is, by it's very nature, griefing others, there's no two ways about it folks. I don't care how you try to cover that up, make up and jewelry and dresses do NOT turn a pig into something else. I was fully aware of this fact when I was doing piracy, I'm fully aware of this fact when I'm looking at Star Citizen where my unit, SRM, will be playing as pirates, we're all aware of it. We're the bad guys, we've always been the bad guys, it's what we enjoy doing, and we know we will be griefing others in order to be pirates and do what we like to do. We also enjoy PvP and we do NOT try and make our piracy out to be PvP because it's not. PvP is when we find another pirate group to fight with for control of an area, or when we get a good guy group after us and we go toe to toe with them, THAT is PvP. Jumping on ships that can't defend themselves, that ain't PvP.