Also it's a bit...telling that the only player interaction in open that's described on this forum is player vs player violence. Not players grouping to collaborate on objectives or any of the normal things done in every other online game.
Far more a reflection of the forums than the actual game, where such collaboration, organic and otherwise, is common place...even in the absence of 3rd party organizational tools (which I rarely use).
And this shouldn't be surprising. People come to places like this primarily to complain about what they don't like, which also shouldn't be surprising, because there is little point in lauding what's good and what one doesn't think needs to be fixed...unless someone comes along and suggests the activities you've spent literally thousands of hours doing somehow can't happen.
I can log on, go to any well trafficked in-game area, and find a couple of total strangers who would be willing to go off on some adventure; head to a popular RES and wing up with some people to bounty hunt; or go to some of the closer Guardian ruin sites and find people looking to unlock some blueprints or salvage materials who would appreciate some company...etc and so forth. Or, I can ask any of the people online on my friends list (who are mostly on there because our CMDRs met while pursuing convergent goals some time in the past, and is large enough for there to almost be people available) if they need a hand with anything they're up to, and few of them will refuse.
Most of the people who deny that these things exist or think they are minority interactions are mostly avoiding Open and have very little basis for their idea of what goes on. They either put too much stock in external sources of sensationalism, or they had a few unpleasant experiences that colored the rest of their interactions negatively...you can see these types in system chat spouting of accusatory paranoia from other modes (it's the main reason I moved system chat to a separate tab).
Is it not curious that the objections to segregating the players who wish to just play PvE from the others who wish to do both PvP & PvE are coming from the latter group?
I'd have thought that they would welcome such a suggestion, unless, of course, their idea of PvP requires PvE players to present a suitable challenge - which appears somewhat odd. Splitting modes would also permit the removal of the block list (apart from Comms, of course) as players would be deliberately selecting their mode, rather than having the current compromise.
Perhaps the ones objecting most strongly prefer relatively harmless targets, which would be removed should the suggestion be put into practise?
I see three primary assertions here, and I don't think any of them are well founded ones.
I doubt most people fall into either group mentioned and those that do would primarily be coming from the former group, because the game, as it exists now, has a Open mode that does not try to segregate PvP from non-PvP activities. The block functionality also wasn't intended as a PvP filter, so it's presence has little to do with any proposed mode setup. And the people objecting aren't necessarily looking for targets at all.
And you know what? It has no friendly fire. Oh my god, muh immershun? I can literally shoot anything that moves, because if it's friendly, no harm will come to them. Destiny 2 - no friendly fire in 95% of the game (except Crucible). Oh my god, muh immershun? Warframe. No friendly fire. Overwatch - no friendly fire (and god do I wish FF existed in that game sometimes
). You can probably see where I'm going with that
None of these games try to simulate credible worlds/settings and aren't at all analogous to
Elite: Dangerous.
Even my tabletop AD&D game is closer to Elite than any of those titles...in that I'm trying to create a world for player characters to explore and interact with, where a modicum of internal consistency is important to that depiction. I generally expect the party of PCs to be allies and to not kill each other, but I wouldn't dream of making the 33k cubic feet of white hot flame unleashed by a
fireball not burn those foolish enough to be caught in it, or the arrow loosed by a jumpy character at some shadow in the dark not be able to harm that shadow because it turns out it was another PC.
Even in the sorts of games you refer to, I wouldn't play in a FF-off server had I the option to do otherwise, as it would remove constraints that are important to the experience I'd be looking for. I might expect those who deliberately attack teammates without cause to be banned, but the effects enabled by FF are critical and cannot be omitted without radically changing (and in my case degrading) the experience.
an engineer requires, and gimping my ship in the process, thus making everything even slower. I tried, and I don't like playing a second job after my daily one. 
I am only a humble Titan pilot 
. If they include a decent sniper rifle in Odyssey then I may or may not shoot from cover, shouting in the system chat "if you won't implement VR properly I will be shooting people in the face repeatedly" with each kill 
