Interesting thread. It doesnt really effect me now but may one day, as I dont not pirate or trade professionally.
It also seems to me that there are all kinds of crooks out there and some are smart and do their homework and some are.... well short sighted. I like that there are all kinds. There are some who would rather die for their principals and some who see death as the ultimate loss. I say let humans do what humans do, other wise we take the human element from the RP and then its not RP. I would agree with the many who say your "level" should not be mentioned as it is just a game mechanic, but I agree with who ever that was that compared it to a credit rateing, which is not always accurate to how much is in your wallet but it helps.
But to be clear we need scum, traders, pirates, common thieves, we need all kinds out there to get that feeling of humaniy in space. If there are to many scum out there and travel gets to dangerous exspect more cap ship and bigger escorts, if its something the traders are comfortable with, exspect Pirates to florish, and if the scum gives the pirates a bad name or attracts to much of the wrong attention exspect the pirates to police their own ranks and if they dont then they deserve the logical repercussions. I believe organizations like the mafia/triad may quite probably make examples out of the two bit criminals that threaten their more profitable rackets, by attracting to much legal noise. Anyway just some thoughts to kick around.