... and the other shoe dropped. [down]
because of the words EVE online? that's petty. its a nice mechanic. you get a puzzle like the old slider puzzles where you have to reorder the puzzle to crack the code. there are other mechanics specific to EVE that would not make sense in ED but nice nonetheless. one of the better mini games i've come across. i'm not sure how much its changed as i haven't played in over 3 years.
but consider this. without piracy, bounty hunters have less to hunt. its all part of the food chain. traders > pirates > bounty hunters. i think you give too little credit to traders and explorers being able to defend themselves and assume that every pirate or aggressive pilot is capable. i've spent over 5000 hours in open flying an asp scout in all sorts of roles and i can tell you that's hardly the case.