Appreciate the thought, but it's off the mark ol' bud.
Firstly there isn't a shot in hell engineering - or any updates - were explicitly in the name of PvP. They have been to develop combat overall, at the - potentially unintended - detriment to PvP balance. Almost any PvP player I know has affirmed that engineering was a blight on balance and excitement. In a nutshell, what it does is actually give players something to do.
The confusion, which does crop up every now and again, is caused because PvP players tend to provide the most organised and constructive feedback around balancing. I can't remember where the quote is but FD themselves made reference to this. Most PvP players want balanced environment, and players such as TS take it a step further by analysing and commenting on multiple aspects of engineering and general balance.
Without bias, I can honestly say that the number of times I've seen a PvE player has contributed in such a way can be counted on one hand. The general commentary from PvE players amounts to "let us have unlimited power because you can choose not to use it if you want challenge".
But something we can agree on is that as FD introduced more mods, tools, gadgets etc., it did nothing for PvP and simply convoluted the game. I've mentioned a few times before that unless you are clever about what you develop, too many options simply equates to a higher probability of a given combination being overpowered, or the accentuation of "rock paper scissors" - any given loadout can perform better or worse against another, to the point that victory depends on what loadout you happened to bring at the time.
But your note that NPCs don't complain about balance did make me laugh. Cheers for that