Even if it's true that the game is "moved" by PvE interactions only (which is totally right, because in PvP only scenarios exploits would be totally possible), the PvP factor relatively to the PvE actions clearly make the game different (especially when PvE actions are done to support a faction, BGS or Powerplay alike): first of all outfitting will be totally different, especially for trading ships for example, and even the gameplay is very different considering that some actions will be better done cooperating with combat oriented players of your Squadron (I still remember as one of the funniest experiences in the game when I was fortifying escorted by two friends during a CG in Harma, plenty of people that wanted to gank me XD ).
Most of my experiences are related to Powerplay of course, being my main activity in the game, or in BGS, mostly related to Powerplay, and in that particular case we've got a situation where two groups usually play against each other doing PvE actions to have a result, the PvP factor would bring new emergent gameplay, very different from the ganking suffered by the single mostly uninterested player.
That's the reason why I think that the two galaxies model would be ideal, being the two gamestyles (pvt/solo PvE and Open PvE with the occasional PvP encounter) are so different strategically that cannot really cohexist in the same environment.
This way we'd have two parallel galaxies and a single player could chose to engage in one of them (or both) with a different CMDR, depending on their gamestyle or simply what they want to do on that particular day.
And about PvP bringing the same ships well... it depends.
I often did PvP in enemies home systems with ships totally unadapt for duels, but my goal was to take down fortifiers and possibly run away as fast as possible from their escorts. There's a lot of different shades of PvP or PvE/PvP mixed content, duels or ganking are just a minimal part of it, and in my experience when I was alone fortifying with my T9 the "duel" was mostly played in Supercruise, to avoid interdiction or trying to run away in the most efficient way possible. Most Open Players crave this kind of gameplay, slower, far less grindy and with the human factor as most relevant instead of exploiting the many, many, many unbalanced factors in BGS and Powerplay (which should be solved by themselves of course).
It's not just about "ganking". It's about playing the game in a different way. I really believe that both sides would benefit to play in their own galaxies: we'd take the gankers.
We'd take very good care of them actually, without them being able to switch to solo when cornered.
en.wikipedia.org
