On #1: When seen by itself, as possible player to player transaction, it would make absolute sense. Without even needing the artificial limitations to it. Just like it doesn't make any sense from an in-world point of view, to not be able to buy materials with credits, etc.
Once you look at the complete game design, things change. Right from the start FD blocked credit transactions. You can transfer goods, but thanks to how fast you can scoop or collect with limpets and capacity limits of instances, it's slow and cumbersome and thus not being used too much.
Then credits lost their value as currency. Be honest: anybody who still cares for credits is an absolute beginner without much knowledge of the game yet. Once you learned your way around, credits are just something you have. The actual currency are materials. That's not unique to ED, either. Just look around at many games out there. Each new content has it's own trinkets and stuff to collect, which you then can trade for rewards.
The prime example would be GW2, where each new mini-zone comes with it's own "currency", be it petrified wood, frost berries, pearls or whatever else. As they are not transferable, it means no matter how much a veteran somebody is, he actually has to play the content instead of just dropping a few thousand gold on it and be done for.
So while the player to player trade would make absolute sense from an in-game point of view and it's absence is against all in-world logic, it makes perfect sense from a game design point of view to not allow this transfer.
The question really is what you consider more valuable. The logic of the simulated world, or gameplay design.
On #2 I also throw in a hard NO!
Up to now ARX is just cosmetics. I could not discuss that I liked the old shop more, as prices were more evident.
I know that the old shop didn't work for consoles and I do understand that they wanted to unify and streamline the system, instead of having to support two completely different shopping infrastructures. Yet I an also say that I have bought several things in the old shop, and not a single thing since ARX is around. Merely due to not being immediately able to see how much something now costs and not caring enough to do the calculation. I just don't buy instead.
With that out of the way (sorry, I just had to write it once again.... ), I still want all microtransactions to only be cosmetical, with no technical advantages. Selling engineering materials for actual money might be one of the few moves, which could actually annoy me enough to quit the game.
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