Anyone who has done a pure-mission moneymaking character knows that is a pure PAIN to get enough money to even buy a VHF. The highest paying missions are around 600K in the Omicron base systems (Crete, Malta) and even those aren't a very good investment because its going to take a pretty long time to kill those 3+ BH destroyers. And you can't use those to buy a VHF or LF MKII, because you need one of those to do those missions in the first place.
I personally don't trade because I find it an incredibly easy and an incredibly lame way at making massive amounts of cash for little to no risk. After all, if someone pirates you, you're losing only about 10-20% of the trip you're making at that very moment, so they're making a measly amount of cash while you're just saying "lolz oh well I'm still going to make a 30 mil net gain".
This, along with the fact that I despise capital ships (Can't explain it, I just don't like 'em) is why I'm running mostly inferior equipment on a Blood Dragon, and the good equipment I do have (Nuclear mines) I don't use very often because its so expensive and I don't have the cash to spam them and use 20 of them every battle. This is also why I basically can't even kill a gunboat unless I'm extremely lucky.
Why is this a good thing?
1) It makes it so that not everyone who's been playing for more than 5 hours and knows what they're doing has a capital ship.
2) It makes it so you have to CHOOSE (CHOICES?! WHAT!) between equipment: Do you want those awesome guns, or those awesome shields right now? Do you want to spend your money now on an armor upgrade MK II, or do you want to run a few more missions/trading runs to get the MK IV upgrade? Do you want to get a gunboat with not-very-good equipment, or do you want to outfit that fighter you've got now?
3) It makes it so that fighters are the dominant force in the battlefield. There should be at least a 5-to-1 ratio of snub fighters -> capital ships on the battlefield. Whenever you see a fight, its usually either bomber vs Cap ship or Cap ship vs Cap ship. This is boring. You RARELY see fighter vs fighter combat unless the people with the fighters are restricted to them by clan rules or they are alternate characters for exploring through rocky space.
4) You can either choose the easier longer path (trading) or the harder faster path (missions) to gain money. More choices! Yay!
PS: Yes, I did search. All I found was that mission rewards needed to be raised (...), so I'm offering a counter argument.
PPS: I am not proposing mission rewards stay the same. I am proposing that they go up a SMALL (SMALL) amount so that you can actually buy a capital ship without playing for 150 hours.
