Some good points in the opening post, and yes i am struggling to play more than an hour or so a day.
But why, well it is hard to put into words, i love the game, i love the graphics and the sound, and in its own way strangely addictive up to a point.
i think my question is "What matters", the economy stays the same no matter what i or 100's of others do, just numbers and text.
NPC spawns again and again, just for me. Killing hundreds does not matter.
Missions have no effect on anything else, Galnet news is written in the office and has little or no connection to the galaxy that we can see or experience.
Someone mentioned the Tenche influence change, yes switching stations staved of a civil war (which always happens after a boom), so the devs ended that early and have stopped luxury trading for now.
A station moved (offline) and appeared elsewhere. Again a code change, hand written. This is a living, breathing galaxy decided upon by devs in an office and changed once a week. During the week nothing changes.
I would like to see my taking out an NPC type 9 loaded with gold as having a knock on effect in the economy, taking out mineral supply ships effecting ship and module production, clearing out pirates making that system more profitable and safer for traders.
Major factions actually doing something to protect their Empires, not spawning in zones just for me to shoot at.
I want a gang of human players to be able to terrorize and blockade, and make a system suffer economically, and the major faction try to fight back.
If i have to search for trades and upgrades then, at least there is a good reason for it, and also a reason to try change it.
Thats where this wonderful, beautiful, could be so much more game fails, because nothing matters.