Good post there...
But how often do you have to haul 752T into a system heavily guarded by other players ?
I seems to me most players in open are being busy, minding whatever it is they are doing, and hardly notice me at all
I picked 750T, becuase it is a nice number if you are looking for Powerplay modules. Of course you can do mutliple trips, but if you are going do the tedious loading routine of the cargo, I prefer to only have todo in one go than over several, but that is me. And I still consider this to be a descent compromise between defense and primary function (hauling cargo)
It is not really about running head on into "player guarded" system, just think about you minding your own business and then this other player finds you and decides that your cargo run is the perfect settings for testing out their new Burst build for fast ship destruction.
I know my Type 9 is over top engineered and far from the general build Type-9 CMDRs tend fly.
You are correct that most players in Open are not aggressive, most of them time they ignores you, or sends a friendly O7 your way while they keep on doing their thing, but then there is this small group that thinks that aggressive behaviour towards other players is the best thing in the game... and these players most often run ships that is designed to destroy other ships as fast as possible, and unless you play in combat ready ship, you can have a really bad time when one of these players finds you.
So what options do players really have in regards to these chance encounters? How much should you really have to be prepared for? some preparation sure, but should you need to fly a fully engineered ship for doing some hauling in what is labelled as high security systems?