Now that you are saying that, it is true that the part of "surrender your goods or die" is currently lacking, as it's actually "die and surrender your goods once they're half-pulverised in space".
However the player is still most likely to always take the fight, even then that would be a nice way to deal with convoy raiding, i mean when you hear a cargo ship is full of volatiles your first reaction shouldn't be
"Let's blow it up and hope there is some left after that"
but rather
"Let's hijack it, either the faction wont want to put-up with a shortage and pay or we'll resell it elsewhere to either their enemy or the black market, however they'll probably dislike that even more"
As for the redacted, they're certainly the best suited as a menace for when colonies are established outside of the core worlds, that could be good enough of a reason(coupled with core rivals waiting for opportunities) as to why the main factions do not want to invest large amount of ressources into promising territory so easily.
Lastly, that's good citizen, the Emperor Hegemony is proud of you.