Disco's player count is probably the only thing keeping it going.
Any measures made that will directly (negatively) affect the player count could very possibly send it to it's grave, like so many other Freelancer mods.
A vast majority of players come because Disco has the biggest playerbase, and I doubt most of them have the desire to roleplay at a level we would consider 'decent'. Roleplayers (read: those that come to Disco for roleplay, or at least enjoy it on top of the game aspect) are a minority, sadly.
It's current lifetime cannot be measured, due to the relatively steady income of players, but if it were to lose say, half of it's current average players, I think it's time could begin to be measured in months.
What you suggest may solve a single problem, but it opens up many new problems. A good idea would perhaps be to essentially restart Discovery with a new mod, keeping the ships and a select few mod systems.
That said, deleting the player files would probably cause a few people to leave, too.:P