Why remove the stat? Just because YOU dont like it?
Personally I'd like to see the trade rank removed. It's reminding me of all those times I moved boxes from A to B, and then sometimes for variety moved boxes from B to A, and I'd rather not have it there.
And I recently got the game, and I'd like to play it except it has this stupid rank grinding nonsense that requires playing it to unlock stuff but you can't play it since no one else plays.
For what it's worth, most of the unlocks aren't particularly good, and the ones that are good you get pretty early on. By the time you're rank 20ish (about 0.5% of the way to Elite, and achievable in a weekend if you already know how to fight) you'll have basically all the good stuff, and at rank 40ish (3.5% of the way to Elite) you'll definitely have all the good stuff.
For comparison, if you want to get a top-class exploration ship by exploring, you'll need about 53 million for a 6A fuel scoop and an Asp to fit it to, which will be ~15% of the way to exploration Elite.
If you want to get a top-class trade ship by trading, you'll need about 265 million for a trade-fit Cutter, which will be ~25% of the way to trade Elite.
If you want to get a top-class combat ship by combat, you'll need perhaps 90 million for a high-end FAS, which will be ~25% of the way to combat Elite (more, if you get it somewhere other than a HazRES)
So you can get a top ship in CQC way faster than you can get a top one in any other profession ... and just as you don't start in a battle Anaconda on a fresh account, you have to get that by playing the game. The gap between "stock rank 1 Condor" and "best ship" in CQC is extremely small, too - enough to make a difference in a 1v1 dogfight versus someone with identical skill, but pretty much irrelevant the rest of the time. If you can win a match in the "best ship" (whatever that is for you) then you could almost certainly have won it in the stock rank 1 Condor as well.
