To be fair, nobody but you is doing that and it's not sensible to design for it.
Are you sure? I guess I could be an anomaly that I try not to cheat (although I gleefully abuse exploits). Most munchkins would probably outright cheat (like third-party maphacks or duping in Diablo). It is not a sensible design, which puzzles me why add anti-scum technique if all it did was extend the grinding time required (and still be the fastest legit way) to get a rare ship? Not that it matters since that nonsense is history.
Back then, if I want a rare ship, scumming the rare fleets that had the rare ship was the only reliable way, if not using mods. What is the point of some ships if you cannot even play them due to being too rare?
As for too much money, 0.6.5a had those infamous food runs for power-leveling and income. What would I need that high income for, after I have about twenty Atlases? Probably nothing, except gamble it away for rare ships. I wanted Hyperions and Tempest, but they were very rarely sold.
Console is playing with mods. I should not need a mod to play with content offered by the base game. I am glad that era of boarding was scrapped for ship recovery.