I think this game has enough issues with boring people out of the game to just make highsec PvP-free at this point. You would need to do a bunch of game design work and rework to make this a thing. Too much is balanced around highsec not being 100%. Like, you might as well delete most of the haulers as only fitting choice that matters would be cargo capacity.
So no, to the second idea. Adding safety to your PvP sandbox game has never made it more active. CCP has tried and tried this, and all that happens is more players get bored and leave the game, and these players whose main jam is safety that the safebears promise will show up, never show up. And the game gets less active.
As to the first, this is a better idea. Moving more income sources to loot that needs to be redeemed in Empire space is probably a good idea. But there is also no point in doing this until CCP gets around to reworking jump freighters and logistics. As is it, moving stuff from nullsec to Empire is 100% safe, so I kinda doubt just adding redeemable drops to nullsec is going to re-invigorate piracy in this game.
So -1 I guess to this feature or idea in the wrong place. I mean, the only place piracy is currently working is around the trade hubs/lanes like Jita and Amarr. Why would you want to delete that if you want piracy to be in the game?