Eppy misspoke. We don't have better stats because there are less of us, we have them because it's part of our RP. Outcasts are in to techie things. Our cardamine makes us smarter and live longer. Why does living longer matter? Well if a weapons tech has a concept for a new gun, he has 50 extra years to think about how to make it work.
We have lots of allies that get us our materials in exchange for cardamine.
See a pattern here? It all comes down to cardamine. No one wants to trade ship materials for a transport full of trinkets, but if you get them addicted to your drug, then they'll be begging you to trade some for whatever they have.