I guess the bigger question is 'what kind of game is Starsector?'
Is it an adventure game (with sandbox elements) with a beginning, a middle, and an end? Something like the Starcom games on steam, where you play through the game, you explore the world and experience the story, and then that's it?
'Getting rich' is obviously not the end goal of a game like that, and if Starsector is that kind of game, then I can understand if some of my criticisms don't really matter. Getting money is a hurdle you deal with, in one or more of several different ways, and then you move on to more important things.
Or is it a more of a sandbox world that you play around in, but there's no obvious main end goal. There's 'late game,' but this could be a variety of different activities that are largely optional and also largely mutually exclusive from each (encouraging multiple play-throughs). There may be story elements, but these are not the main drive of the game... they just serve to give context and flavor to the sandbox world. In this kind of world, getting fabulously rich (and having things to spend that money on) could very well be one of the main late game activities.
On a recent playthrough I finally found the gate storyline and got the
Spoiler
Ziggurat... and the ship definitely feels like something from an adventure game (the kind of thing that's given to the player in the last 5% of the game), as opposed to something from a sandbox game. It's so incredibly powerful, it trivializes all other ships.
So anyway, that got me thinking that maybe I had pegged Starsector wrong, and it's more of an adventure game than a sandbox game. Or maybe it has a bit of an identity problem.
I hope it's a sandbox, with lots of different possible goals. The game is amazing, and I want more excuses to spend more time in it.