Being recently returned to the server for barely a week, and just flying for fun, I'll state simply that most of my time on my junker ship has been mining scrap in Texas. That's both for storage in PR plus filling up other ships for runs to Alpha and so forth.
As for smuggling, I did that last night., bringing a load of cardi to Manhattan. I will say, however, that it was somewhat sad and disappointing. No one was around when there used to be multiple LN/LSF capitol ships parked over the planet and 2 or 3 LPI scanning everyone that flew by. *sighs*
Now, it's my understanding that this past week has been a no jump time period - not really up to speed on the jump issues other than jumping was modified with ship size restrictions. Anyway, most of what I've seen have been junkers hauling scrap and smuggling in the past week. That said I'll grant that from your POV it's more conjecture and supposition and from my POV it's a limited time in space over a rather short period of time.
I suppose I'll just agree to disagree and issue the caveat that in my return to playing the game I have no leadership role within the Congress. I'm just a returning veteran of the group.