Excuse me for not reading the entire thread, but I hit the 2nd page and came up with an idea that I just had to share before I forgot it.
Have wages ever been considered? Most people have trader Alts simply because their main characters never make any money(Or little of it). For example only SOME factions would receive wages(Navy, Actual companies etc, maybe some of the pirates)...it's something I've seen done on quite a lot of roleplay servers(for different games mind you.) You'll say, earn $15 bucks an hour, an hour naturally being a minute 'real time' for example. Naturally this would probably be increased for freelancer(What the hell can 15 bucks buy you in freelancer..) and it also promotes people playing more(Stay on longer... earn more money.)
I don't know, I actually rather hated having to 'farm' wages to buy stuff on other roleplaying games, so I'm sorta just throwing that out there and sharing it with everyone.