The ability to credit transfer (through ridiculously priced sales in an Auction House) and outfit ships with unearned modules would permit a form of Guild Banking to fund, equip and cover the losses of other players - those players would not need to be overly concerned about personal bankruptcy (losing a ship) as they would (probably) be covered by the Guild - the same would not be able to be said of the players that did not have access to a (practically) inexhaustible credit supply. Add the ability to change CMDR name on a whim to that mix and the mischief potential is greatly increased.
No credit transfer without a sale of goods, we are talking about an auction house, specifically, but let's add guilds, cos that's important to me as well.
What you describe would rely on players being able to trade credits AT the rebuy screen, I don't think anyone is asking for that. Or are you suggesting that a guild makes sure that all its members have the rebuy for the ship that they are flying all the time? Cos that's impossible. Alternatively, if credits were granted after the fact, to buy new equipment etc., firstly, I can't imagine any guildmaster that would do that, in fact, I'd fire the player for flying without rebuy, but let's go with your example, and secondly, the rest of the guild would be up in arms. However, yet MORE importantly, that repurchased ship won't include the engineering which is the 'meat' of a ship, and cannot be bought with credits.
By the way, in Elite, costly death is just another random mechanic that has stayed because players need a credit sink (for the exact reason I keep stating, nothing worth getting can be bought with credits). A credit sink is indicative of a problem on its own (poorly planned game economy), so hardly stands up as a reason on its own to prevent the faster acquisition of credits, its existence implies that credits are already easy to get (and they are). As I say, I would never 'give' gold from the guild to a member (I have managed three guilds in three MMOs and never covered anyone's costs, the guild money was for buying mats to make potions before the raids so that our chemists didn't need to spend their own resources when we did group activities). Again, if gold acquisition in Elite were difficult, or it could buy you anything important, I'd be on your side, and against anything that could introduce gold sellers, but it seems to me that Elite was ALREADY designed to prevent the acquisition of what's important with credits (like all good MMOs, of course), so it DOESN'T have the same implementation issues that a less well designed game would. I have SIGNIFICANT experience in this matter, and can assure you this would only be a good thing in Elite, it would add so many gameplay options for miners, pirates, capitalists, those who just like buying and selling, etc.
I once bought gold in wow as a guildmaster, a lot of it. I had to, it was that or take it from the guild bank, which would have been far less honourable. We had just taken on a new Paladin tank. Paladin tank was my role, but I was fine tanking on the Druid as well, so I had to respec a load of top tier gear, suddenly. The gear itself I had obtained the hard way, rolling on drops for my off class as my guildmates allowed me during hardcore raiding, but I needed the gold to buy crafting materials and some basic pieces etc. I couldn't very well ask my guildmates, oh sorry guys, need to grind gold for a couple of weeks, we'll drop down the world rankings like a stone while I do that, but it's ok, when I'm back, we'll get back into it!
I imagine a player-to-player trade-hub would be a rather dull place in Solo mode.
Course, I suppose there's always PG mode as well.
"Pay $5 a month to be part of my PG and I hook you up wid all da bangin mod's (see my eBay auctions for further details)"
The BGS is common among all modes, an auction house could be too (I didn't miss the part you italicised, I just chose to elaborate
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