Lets get this straight, Mr. 7 seconds. See, even if many pirates went to many servers, its not like if there were MANY people entering a quiet server, they would all go after one fleet? There would be many fleets in the game, and pirates would find it adventurous to go hunting them down. Even if it WERE hard to go individually for the enemy ships, this would obviously eventually force the pirates to start crews, like they USED to. They hardly form crews now. However, on Ideal/Full servers, the Fleets should be numerous in numbers, and it is easy to devise a way of preventing fleet collision.
Then you bring the matter of gold into this. See as I explained in my thread,
What the New Loot and Inventory System lacks, there is a need for Trading and Jobs. Now, if both were to come, there would be innumerable easy ways to reach the Gold cap. How to prevent endless extension of Economy? Keep the current Loot drop rate, introduce more and more things for pirates to buy, and mostly, keep the rarity of ships (Fleets idea).
See, if Trading and Jobs were to come, the cap would be reached immediately and there would be no fun in an economy
Now what you said about the theme of Pirates being unrealistic. I said it and will say it again. Voodoo, Calypso, etc are a part of this world's mythology and real in that world's mythology. Therefore considering anything magical in that world, would be dumb. Now, keeping that in mind, I really don't see your need in supporting POTCO's "measures" in making the game unrealistic. I'm not saying the game has to be fully realistic (we should be allowed to hold many weapons, no need blood when we use weapons, etc), but that the various points of realism that I pointed out, are to make the game more complex and thus more fun.
The increasing simplicity of the game, as Crestshot has pointed out, has resulted in the loss of SEVERAL players. If the game didn't have a complex economy, complex game fighting, etc. then there is no fun in it. If the game becomes simple (like they did for ship battles and the BB) there is no endless fun in it. Kids and adults both agree that there is a need for such a complexity. If you and they think that because the game is targetted for kids there is no need for complexity, then I believe that you are targeting FOUR YEAR OLDS. Please, 10 year olds are as smart as 14 year olds. And if they didn't know, 65% of its players are adults, which makes even more a need for complexity. I really don't see whats wrong in making some Fun, realistic ship fleet battles. Even the privateering ideas (fugitive, mercenary, protection) should be implemented
Midhav