Launching from Trevithic in a shiny new Freewinder with no rep, no history, no enemies and nothing to lose is refreshing - plus you get to keep your knowledge, so you know where to go for the 1,000cr-a-ton-10-minutes-each-way trade routes and you keep your "actual" combat skills.
I've wiped my save 8 times in two years. I wiped it after my first 2 weeks where I played in Solo to learn the game before moving into Open. I've wiped when major updates come out and I've wiped it several times for Iron-Man(ish) reasons (killed back to Trevithic too many times == unlucky commander).