Good post. This is the way to go.
I got so bored farming for a schooner I quit for a month. A week after I started trading I had a brig and a gally. And now half a million in a buried chest.
A tip for those 40k days... 1. Set up fair one for one trades and profit by volume. 2. Cart in product from out of range gathers. 3. Trade everything. People are trading just to trade and not always because they need something.
The system is totally broken but it's the only way we have now. If you can't find a place to drop the structures, your boned! Farm whales in a sloop.