OK, so I'm a trader with a nice new load and there's no one who wants to escort me. What do I do now? Log off and hope for better luck next time? I fly a Bison because I *want* to fight any pirate that threatens me. *I* want to fight them. In my transport. It's hard enough to win now, and you want to take away my armor and turrets?
Also, my time online is unpredictable. I can't make promises to meet anyone at such and such a time and can't expect that just because I want to trade at 1 AM that someone will miraculously show up.
In the year or so that I've been playing I have not *once* been asked if I wanted an escort. And the few times I have figured one would be useful, no one said yes. The trading/pirate dynamic is already skewed in favor of the pirates, let's not make it worse.