Buddy, it's trading. Profit, cr/h is quite literally all it's about. You undock, fly, dock, and your credit balance increases. It's not exciting, it's not challenging, it's simply a grind - a fairly pleasant grind, but a grind nonetheless. That's why trade CGs need to pay well. Hell, make them about as profitable as regular commodity trading - just don't make them less, that's absurd when combat goals yield huge rewards for relatively little effort and more fun.

Why people insist on playing solely for CR/hr instead of just enjoying the bloody game, I'll never understand.

Nobody plays just for credits, but yeah, credits are a huge deal. I mean, of course they are. They're pretty much the only measure of success, advancement and reward in the game. Every single activity in the game is done with the view of increasing your credit balance. When you have more credits, you automatically are better at your chosen role - a mediocre pilot in an Fdl will always beat a master pilot in a Viper, a newbie trader in a T9 will outprofit a veteran in a T6, an explorer in an Asp will have a much better time than one in an Eagle. This game is all about credits, so no shit, yeah, I consider good rewards for CGs important.

Imagine if Quivira had just curb-stomped Patreus without that little Takeover of Godel Ring/Dock (forgot which, at work).

You know, that's funny, because what you're talking about was a bug that was later made into a GalNet story. Combat CGs always mess up faction influence (most notably in Lugh), but Frontier tends to "lock" systems to prevent them from flipping before the CG is over. They forgot to do that in Quivira, and it wasn't fixed for a few days as it was a long weekend in the UK.

The independents absolutely massacred the Imperial forces in Quivira. There was simply no contest. Yet, the system is still going to fall, apparently, and we still have those refugees.