I don't think Devs will answer your rhetorical question.

If you design a MMO concentrating heavily  on the multiplier aspect , no wonder 2 or more accounts would always be better than one, specially since experience is gained passively. Obviously 1 account is cheaper, and if your only reason to use more accounts is to grind NIC e.g buy bots/items for pvp lose them, rinse and repeat, you can always buy a few ICE.

The game 'requires' you to multi-box because you can derive a large benefit from activities that require only occasional attention.

If being a follow-bot required some sort of mental activity, it wouldn't be nearly as popular to have them on 2nd boxes.

For instance in EQ2 crafting requires you to click things and react to 'problems' to produce each item. Here you just put the CT in and let it run for days, and the product is just as good and almost as much as someone who pays attention to every little detail.

Combat follow bots are even worse, simple click-bots that take zero interactivity once running.

Of course, the enemy can field dedicated EW mechs to disrupt your follow-bots, requiring you to pay more attention, thus reducing their effectiveness. That's only effective in large group combat, which is a rarity.

One account? Why not, if we get 500k EP for free? Or the player base explodes to what it was in 2010.

If i recall there was a thread about this to do with ISO BOXER which in part has wrecked your game and yes you did advocate using it is ok, so the obvious happens those desperate to make a name for themselves or to win will abuse this as much as they can, anyway i believe that accounts should be limited in number

Isboxer works fine in PVE as far as i know from someone who was using it.

Mining and grinding npcs with 10 accounts works fine.

PvP is different - not because the DEVs implemented measures against it, or not because PvP demands it -
- simply because of the usual lag/server issues and desyncs make it almost impossible to use there

Zoom - you say you dont advocate multiboxing -> but you kinda force overspecialsation onto any new player.
It already starts with account and character creation. There is no way someone new to the game can easily TRY out some of the specialisatons without creating multiple trial accounts.
you give them 3 agent slots, but a shared EP pool, but not shared extensions/assets.

advancing in one faction aka weapon-class takes already from 6 month to 2 years to advance into. If you want to casually switch to production, mining or simply from turret to missiles, you extend the progression time even more.
Don't tell me that isn't "advocating" multi accounting. The argument that you dont want to habe omnipotent, jack-of all trades-agents is stupid when you think about how your robot fitting system works.

BUT - the topic theme was: what in this games does the oppositte - make me want to play with ONE account, except the fact that two accounts makes it already more expensive then any other monthly sub game that allows me to have multiple independant characters on the same server.

Inda does it all on one account
I want to be like Inda

But I love all 5 of my accounts!

Dude didn't the last dev blog say they were going to instance the tutorials. With each faction getting some play time possibly h-mech test drive to learn the ropes.
You really need to calm down let the dev's do there thing. stEVE has a huge multiboxing/clienting following from haulers to support (Nexus's) and even tackle or gatecamping alot of multiclient/boxing is done. I even had 3 accounts on stEVE one combat(pirate with negative standings) one miner and one mixed(hi sec runner for pirate) and an alt hauler on one account which also shared EP via learning time.

There really is no problem with multi clienting besides the fact that my follow bot gets stuck and killed and peoples perception of a GF = OMFGWTFBBQ undock the heavys and follows for an assault gang. But thats the game I've been guilty of over reaction to threat as well it happens and you live with it.

Edited Grammer

Nexus support is a pain to fit and is more suited to a follow bot.
Remote Sensor amp also more suited to a follow bot.
Remote Armor repair/ Energy Transfers can be follow botted but is more useful when driven by a skilled solo player.

Given enough time any fighter can spend the minimal EP to drive a sequer and pick up their own farming can.

Ok you got me. But if we were forced to only have one sub, running an Assault nexus on my artimis would force me to run a different fit and I would feel gimped in a fight. To be able to fit any nexus on a bot that your intending to drive in to combat other than a follow bot will limit your combat capabality far more then the nexus will help your specific nexus equiped bot. That being said it would help the rest of the fleet by X%

Why do people run a second account to detect instead of putting a detector on their mech? Because it gimps their fit and makes them an easy target.

The multi boxing argument is not valid for this type of game. You could change it a little but the advantage to multi box is still there, unless you change the game to a more twitch based type, which I would rather the Devs did'nt do.

No don't make supporting roles more complicated. Only thing you could do is remove approach for a moving target, but that would be quite controversial, for so many multi boxers out there, I think it's late for that and would not add anything fun to the single account player.

Though single accounts could be given some love, like separated large bot ore holds for mining/harvesting or separated 'loot holds' for only plasma and damaged items. Some of the mechanics to promote multi-playing just brings more of a hindrance than actually improve the game.

Zoom: that seems like a good idea , I wouldn't know about the fun in that as you said, but it would need to be tested

I think the single most important aspect of a single player would be the ability to specialize (which is fine) and still be rewarded heavily for that. For the rewards to happen there needs to be an active market. Trade needs to flourish for the single account player to trade their goods easily. Nic is at the center of these trades, a specialized miner for example should be able to sell raw materials easily and buy any other stuff that s/he might want, without the need to get another account or sacrifice EP to become good at nothing, in a short time.

What we have now is a jack of all trades 'multi accounter' because either there is little competition and prices are inflated or there is no item available and need to do it all themselves.

Yes I agree somewhat, not much needs to be changed, but how does a specialized solo miner without a hauler account or a even PVE combat character accomplishes this? I'm sure there are a number of options but are they really that fun?