I might be in a state of denial or disbelief, but I still have trouble grokking this. There is a "vendor", which by the word idea this represents is supposed to hold some stock for you to purchase in exchange for some currency. You have to qualify for the right to access it, fine. But in reality, whether he has anything for you depends on chance, not on your buying power. Is this a roughly accurate description of the state of being? If yes, this is exactly what life under communism was like just before it collapsed... Lucky we're not dealing in existential needs here.
Arkadia now has these Smuggler missions. If you haven't heard about it, head over to their forum and read the relevant threads. It's basically a system which at the beginning looks like the same idea, i.e. you have to fulfill a certain amount of activity to qualify for access to another stage where you can obtain certain items. Only there it is a set of instances where you can hunt to loot these items (special armor parts and plates). People moan about the drop rates and the cost as always, but they are game. There is the thrill of fighting for it, while here you just get a shrug 999 out of 1000 times, or whatever.
Tell me I still got it wrong, but if not, is it a wonder players have difficulties with acceptance? To me it doesn't look like as if Cyrene devs had wanted it to be this way, but somehow ran into red tape with MA along the way when it was already too late to retract, and now they aren't even allowed to talk about it. This of course fuels all kinds of unhealthy speculation. Isn't there a way to just clear everything up, mop up the mess and restart? I'm sure something much better can come out of it. Don't kill the excitement, you want to make a living off it after all.