Excellent explanation. My one nit-pick is that it actually understates the cost (in money or time) of a PvP battle, because almost nobody quits as soon as they get their first ship blown out from underneath them. They make their way back to the hangar, grab another ship, and go right back out and get it blown out from under them, too.

That is to say, a busy Saturday evening in 0.0 space will cost you 20, 30, maybe 50 or more hours' worth of EVE work (boringly) farming asteroids or pirates for that 3 or 4 hours of getting blown up and blowing other people up. It's that or drop $15 to $50 a week on PLEXes so you can (in effect) pay other people to farm asteroids or farm 'rats for you.

You know what? No game's PvP is that fun to me. Which is why, once I actually felt like I was beginning to understand EVE, I quit it altogether and just read about it here.