You are never trapped into one role in ED as long as you pay the consequences of what you do. If you commit a crime you are wanted criminal no matter what ship you are in. You don't want to be a criminal anymore, pay the consequences.
Notoriety takes a couple of weeks real time to cool down for me as I don't exploit it away, that's a consequence. There are factions hostile to me no matter what ship I'm in, that's a consequence. There are bounty hunters after me that's another consequence. If I hang around too long I 'll also have ATF on my back.
One of the things with C&P is you get locked out of IF's so you can't pay the consequences off.
The options are still there, there are are just consequences to your options which shouldn't be avoided because you decided to play in a different ship the next day.
So nothings avoided really. I stash my 'hot' ship and along with all of the above all I need to worry about is bounty hunters, not switching modules and the detention center if I get exploded.
Its hardly consequence free.
As to real life comparisons, it's nothing to do with real life, it's about something that makes some kind of sense within a game world. At the moment it doesn't. You may like that, that's fine, but I do not. I would prefer the game world I platinum to make some kind of sense.
Crooks get away with it every single day by dressing nicely and driving by the rules. So it makes perfect sense.