I've gone thru the same thing. I totally get the OP's point.
It'a not the credits, I have over 500 million in petty cash. I can buy anything I want. I have the ships I want, modules... etc. I've been everywhere I want to go, and I see no merit in pressing "J" a zillion times to see another bunch of brown spheres... 8k+ kills, I've seen enough exploding ships. Triple Elite. Fed/Empire ranks. Generation ships ? You mean 6 or 8 scripted voice clips ? Been a miner. BH'd myself silly. Traded. Piracy holds no allure, you don't make money, which to me, is the whole point. Killing players for the sake of killing is just being an as... something.. unless it's consensual. I've shuffled enough whiny passengers around the bubble. Run errands for hundreds of minor functionaries in even more nameless systems, all convinced they're the reason for universe.
I log in every once in a while, check out the boards.. Was going to get into the whole Tharg thing.. then heard about nerfs, changes, etc... saw I couldn't "load for bear" and decided... "Meh.. wait and see".
I want something... MORE. A storyline.. a narrative. I thought maybe the whole Salome thing... or the Rift.. Raxxla.. But those seem to go nowhere. So.. why play ? If I really lived in the ED universe, it would be time to hang out at Jameson, eat, drink, wench, and generally live off my reserves until something struck my fancy or I ran out of credits.
I see my character now much like Robert Vaughn's character in the Magnificent Seven. But I'm not really hiding, per se, just too tired/bored to move.
I'm waiting for SOMETHING..