Well, the idea seems to be that a player who wants to get top notch equipment has to endure disadvantages for it to make the game harder for him (and therefore "more interesting"...well, duh...) - namely being hated+chased by the police forces and other official groups.
So much for the idea. Fact is that it doesn't make much sense if outlaws have seriously better equipment than top ranking military vessels - in any rational world they'd just invade the civilized systems, start to plunder everything and rid themselves of those pesky police/military bugs.
Another thing is that most police forces are rather lame to fight once you have some lvl10 toys equipped, so much for the "more difficult, more interesting" idea.
I too think that this concept is "a bit weird" at best and "exasperating" at worst. Well, I guess that's why people invented modding... I'll keep combing the civilized systems for some lvl8/9 stuff, but when I'm finally frustrated, I'll go implement some additional weapon selling places, mabye also some custom weaponry itself, then buy me a crateload of doomsday guns, fly out into the baddie systems and kick some major pirate ass - just for the hell of it.
D_R