I completely agree with your sentiment. CCP sure seemed proud of the research showing “why” people stayed.
I visited my starter system years ago, during my first few weeks in EVE. There were plenty of players in there successfully baiting noobs into shooting first. Come to think of it, the server populations were much higher then, right? Haha.
I’ve never been back to that system and don’t have any reason to return. The Internet is full of seal-clubbers, though.