Barges each have their clear strengths and weaknesses. If you want to call that ‘intentionally bad’, go ahead. I prefer to call it 'intentionally well balanced to allow optimisation choices’.
Obviously a lot of people only gank when it’s profitable. In a game that’s all about profits, from industry, hauling, trading, exploration, missions… why would profitable ganking be a twisted mentality?
I agree that profits for multiboxers going down is indeed a form of balancing. However, if ‘multiboxing profits’ is the main driving factor to balance profits for an activity, it means that by the time multiboxers may consider the activity not worth their time anymore, the solo player, who’s time is paying significantly less, has already considered the activity to be worthless for a long time. And that’s a shame, why should certain activities only be worth doing for multiboxers?
I’m not against multiboxing, but I do think that any activity that is as easily multiboxed as Orcas in a belt with large volumes (such as ice) should be adjusted.