The ability to play in an Open "group" with different rules *was* included in the sales pitch for the game:
.... as were more meaningful punishments for PKing that have not been implemented.
What really unnerves me about your quoted text is the way it feels implied, by Frontier, that PvP is griefing. The way that the majority of this forum feels that any and all unwanted player contact is "griefing" is really sad. There is a huge difference between "unwanted player contact" and "griefing" in this game.
Improving the consequences for PKing in Open / Private Groups are not forcing anyone to do anything - although they may encourage some players to play in Open in the knowledge that PKers would suffer consequences for attacking them.
Are you suggesting that the player-base is not already fragmented into the three game modes?
Given how a player's credit balance is a thing of complete non-importance in this game Frontier really should just implement the higher bounties and a permanent all-system wanted tag for pirates (which is ultimately what "griefers" are if you want to get down to the bottom of it). The 1 million collection cap on bounties, as it currently stands, makes the entire system completely worthless because no player worth his salt is going to go hunting for 1mil when he could easily make 5-6 times that much in a RES. Now, I've currently got a 37 million credit bounty on my head from Sirius. If a player could collect on that I might actually be worried about it, about losing the ship I'm flying.
Hell, they could do it in portions. Award a chunk of the bounty so that it's not all done at the same time, something more than 1 million, something that would bring multiple hunters into play so as to keep me on my toes at all time (not that anyone is going to willingly make the 4500ly journey to catch up to me).
If the destruction was by collision and not combat related then it would fall under the collision rule, 4), so points would be added to both players' Pilot's Licences. The player that did it more often would get their account flagged for exclusion (whether temporary or permanent) more quickly. Also, if player/player collision losses were fully reimbursed then there'd be less incentive for the "accident" specialist....
Ah, so the rules would need to be explicit. It's a bit too complex though. The simple solution is often the best and can be expanded on from there. Allow groups to disable player to player damage and be done with it, adjust as needed with major patches unless an exploit in the rules is found that is grievous enough to cause severe harm to the current membership morale.
NOBODY HAS THE RIGHT TO DEMAND THAT OTHER PLAYERS FORM THEIR CONTENT.
It's not demanded, it's expected. If you're in open, man up or shut up.