Smuggling in powerplay, Ben Ryder (and others), report!

[Samosa]

I got about 500 over average at a Delaine controlled station which I could have done better in the open market considering the return trip.

Gotcha. I'm getting over 800K in a two hop trip this morning in the open market (round trip). It's a bit more relaxing, too.

 

[Quineloe]

From what I've seen so far, black markets still suffer from crippling low demand for anything illegal, so only the metagaming imperial slaves discount makes smuggling profitable.

I think Smuggling should be completely reworked anyways. Mission boards only, BM only for stolen goods. Very, very high payouts for small quantities.
Smuggling shouldn't be about running an Anaconda into a Fed station with 452t of slaves.

Other than all black markets openly advertising on system maps (which has seen such a backlash that hopefully it will be reworked into a 'you can see it once you've been to it' deal),

I doubt that. There are two types of changes in these games
- changes that people complain about forever because it actually hurts the game
- changes that people complain about when they go live because they're perceived to cheapen the game.

Only the former is a candidate for undoing.