This probably goes more in balance as its a multi faceted issue..

Resource income sources

Mines 
pro- its like an infomercial at 1am. Set it and forget it...
con- ROI of resources invested to mine paying it back is HORRIBLE

Pirates
pro- easy, consistent income, good ROI of time invested
con- its a computer, its boring. you can engage any player of any size disparity

Resource theft of others
pro- its fun having player-player interaction
con- loot penalty, poor roi of time spent finding targets/fuel to get to them

Debris Hunting
pro-Big amounts of resources in 1 go
con- if player is active risk of getting caught. mostly encourages players going for others significantly smaller than themselves to optimize profits


I think this can be balanced out some without really making anyone angry..

if you were to improve the ROI of mines (more resources produced per resources invested) you'd have more people building mines, you'd have more resources available on the server, you'd also have more players attacking other players to steal resources.
Loot penalty, personally i think the loot penalty kicks in too early, as well as is too severe. I understand restricting it for specific reasons... but perhaps a better option would be to make it so 1 player can only steal X amount from a single player per amount of time. 

If these 2 items (mine roi and loot penalty) were tweaked... you'd really encourage more player/player interaction outside big players hunting tiny players in their point range fleets or inactive fleet hunting.


You'd make pirate hunters happy by not reducing their income
you'd make miners happy by increasing their income
you'd make active hunting players happy by having more resources able to be looted.


just food for thought...