Prices -> trading, mining -> traffic -> pirates -> police/navy.
Who would want to RP a trader? (Without ANY need to?) How many people? How would it affect their motivation to act as they should act if they had nothing to lose and nothing to gain? (Same applies to pirates).
In addition, the time players need to earn money improves the probability of being exposed to good/better/any RP before they buy the CAU8 BS.
Generally I like what you wrote, Crackpunch. Especially that part:
Now I see a lot of opposition to mining being profitable. Most of this opposition comes from the people that already have all the ships they want. Being selfish, they think "Well I've got my stuff, so I don't care what other people want." You notice how low the server population has been with mining nerfed? It's a ghost town. The amount of less-than-RP-capables on the server is about the same though; so that really did nothing other than scare off a few players.
Feel free to PM me regarding any grammar/spelling/other language mistakes I have made in my posts.