Recently, my Wing and I cruise around looking for players (usually the bad guys) to encounter. At times when there isn't anything else available we'll turn to pirating players. I'd much rather be bounty hunting the scum and villainy... But lets be honest, for that to happen the game also needs those who are gonna be bandits.
Well, then I wouldn't ever accept your help, or offer you help. If you dabble with piracy, I don't want to ever meet you, and I certainly won't ever do anything that could help you, including joining in a wing with you.
Oh, so the fact that the P2P solution is cheap as dirt and requires little to no maintenance has nothing to do with it? Heh, sure, whatever you say sport.
Of course that had something to do with it; those are some of the advantages. Together with higher performance if well implemented (though it might be argued the game isn't there yet).
Peer to peer has disadvantages, main one that the players can block each other, but in a game that from the start was built to allow players to block each other by choosing an option in the menu that "downside" is no downside at all.
They can use background processes to monitor on-the-fly firewall changes, they can network spam to check cable length and pair disconnects, they can use software like VAC to check for attacks on the game client itself.
The first two are actually illegal in part of the world; you can't have your software intrusively checking other elements of the player's computer without telling him exactly what you are doing and asking for his permission, and if the player is told exactly what is being checked he can just adjust his methods.
Checking your own software for tampering is perfectly legal, though of limited use.
Sure they can. they can ban you from their game for any reason they wish -- read your T&C's.
If they want a truckload of bad PR, and perhaps even the possibility of legal action, sure; people actually took Frontier to the courts over refunds for the removal of offline mode, despite the terms of their online store saying that they weren't entitled to it, so it's not just hypothetical. (Frontier backed from the fight and refunded the player in full, including the costs for filling the case, if you want to know the end result.)
Besides, T&C / EULA / TOS are universally on shaky grounds, as they can never overrule consumer protection laws. They are more to scare than to bind, and most of the cases I've seen of a company trying to enforce the T&C in court ended with part of the T&C being thrown away.
