Almost new player here. Very glad that game haven't forced me to do PvE crap everyday for half a year every day to achieve an average server level, and haven't continued to do so even after to just stay at the good level. Saved me a lot of time and energy.
Maybe EP system is not ideal, but so do all the other leveling systems. I definitely prefer just wait and try to find something interesting to do while i'm suck than spend days doing necessary and often boring stuff while suck.
It's good to have vets, not just noobs, it makes game more interesting when you see someone who achieved something you may one day. And since you can pilot only one bot at the time, the vet's EP just gives them more choices.
And if they'll stop playing they stop accumulating EP after 3 days, remember? Logging in just for EP is already a lot: it's requires to have it installed remembering it almost constantly for months(years?), it's natural to play sometimes in that case. And if he have a booster and "quits" - well, he's a subscriber, he's paying money, so bother someone else
Eve had some brilliant features and ideas. Time based progression was one of the geatest. It's dying because of the last several years of failure, bad decisions and disappointment (overconfidence?). Because when people wanted something more that spaceships (walking on planets, stations, vehicles etc), and people knew that the developers were able to deliver it, but they won't with boring excuses. And now we have space games which almost from the start have things that eve devs and many players called a waste of manhours. And this exact same players going for this useless features, leaving these eve losers behind. It hav nothing to do with the character leveling. In fact, if not for the skills, eve might've been closed right now. Because it makes an amazing thing: many players get bored and stop playing, but still paying for the sub to train skills, and sometimes they're return from e these STOs, Elites, etc, because noone asked "are you playing or not?" just check your 2-year skill queue and do and play whatever the heck you want.