they take about 5 hours to down a bomber who will happily blow up the weak trader ship with 2 fingers up his... nose. and don't give me that MR crap, you won't hit a dodging bomber who's gunning soley for the trader.
cd spam the pirate? 'tis to laugh. a bomber can cath a trader on thrusters whilst cd spamming the trader.
then there's always the trusty lolsairs in their lolboats. see how 2 eagles stop him? they don't.
bring bombers as escorts then. they take about 4 weeks to down a pirate bomber. trader dead.
they take about 5 mins to down a lolboat. trader dead.
bring a GB as an escort then. see above.
point is: escorts cannot remove the threat fast enough to save the low-armoured trader's ship. at best, they can get even. but by that time, they are no longer escorts, as their employer is space dust.
only effective escort is a full solaris cruiser. *barf*
or do convoys in shires. those things are quite hard to kill when they travel in a pack. all other escorts: useless. I hire em sometimes. but just to give em something to do/ rp.
of course, some pirates are so damn daft that they will actually attack the escort, giving the trader the chance to run. but most pirates will just melt the trader in 20 seconds and then get busy on the 'escorts'