How about loans?
Setting a player all the way back to zero can be crippling. As frustrating as it is for newcomers, it could be absolutely game-killing for someone who has put literally months of his life into this game to suddenly lose everything he has earned for just a moment's carelessness. Has been for several such people, I understand, and I have strongly felt for some time that it would be for me as well. Fear of this is severely dampening my enjoyment of the game.
So, when a player dies without re-buy money, why not simply "loan" them the re-buy money?
The loan payments could then be automatically extracted from their profits every time they make some until their loan was paid off, with interest, like an income tax. This could cripple their progress, yes. It could cripple it for quite some time indeed, especially if they lose a very expensive ship and are slow earners, but they'd still have their ship and all their gear to earn back their loan... and to enjoy the wonders of the E-Dangerous galaxy with while they do.
And they wouldn't have the gut-wrenching experience of watching several real-world months of toil and tribulation evaporate in a puff of smoke.
I agree that it would be the easy way out, but we got a lot of people here who are against it.
However, as you feel this will happen to you, jsut prevent it: never, never, EVER leave the dock with less than 5% of the value of your ship (also known as the rebuy cost). If you know it can happen to you, you got a good chance to stop it