To add my negligible, obviously easily ignored doubts and fears, I can't help but fear that this will cause a lot of grief, especially in the trading community. By extension, this spreads out to the entire community of new players as a whole. Trading is one of the major ways that new players make the money to buy their ships, and I fear that if these changes are permanently implemented, many new players will be scared off by cruisers and battleships hounding tradelanes in the neutral systems between the house systems. Gallileo is a good example of this. I see a lot of pirates there as it is, and very few law enforcement/bounty hunter individuals.
You also bring up the point that traders should hire escorts, but I contend with the issue that traders newly starting out simply do not have the money to hire an escort for a long run. This fear can even be extended to those new players still getting used to the mod, the way its run, and unknowing of the whole escort idea, who try to play, and find themselves driven away by pirate capships.
~I once was an artist, who painted with words. Now, I am but a writer, who speaks for all~