You know, now that's that there: why not use the danger level to reward going after superior fleets? It could, for example, get you additional reputation to collect bounty for a fleet that's much stronger than you. It would make sense for a faction to be more impressed by that.
I love this idea. It would also make sense to scale experience based on relative fleet strength. Using overwhelming force is basically just a way to trade supplies for experience. But beating a force twice your strength? That's an experience you and your officers would learn from.