Efficiency isn't the problem, it's what you get for that efficiency that is the problem.
Smart Bomb Ratting isn't that bad though it is a bit of overfarming, because it takes place in dangerous space (risk of loss), takes expensive ships to do (even outside of sansha/blood raider space) and even then doesn't pay out better than other things.
I know, I used to smartbomb rat last year till I figured out that I'm risking almost a JUMP FREIGHTER worth of ships (Deapsapce/faction fit mach and 3 Fleet Phoons costing 7+ bil)) and using FOUR Characters (without even the benefit of Isboxer) and
still making less isk per hour than if I simply pushed a freaking tech2 frigate sized ship around FW low secSame goes for lvl 5 mission blitzing. Done properly it takes 3 carriers and unless you are in one of the few areas where there are stations close together, it mean erecting POSes to hold 1 or even both "side system" carriers. That's another 8 bil minimum worth of 'set up' costs.
While high sec incursions don't pay as much as the above activities, (under peak conditions I've been in fleets that clocked 180 mil isk per hour, but that of course requires a tcrc wall and is rare), my incursion ship is only 2 bil, it only takes me 1 ship and 1 character as opposed to the multiple expensive ships and characters that the above 'solo' activities do, and they take place in
space protected by CONCORD. The activities Anthar describe can be (and in my case, usually are) disrupted all the time, and those disruptions have to be included in any balance considerations. Disruptions happen in High Sec incursions and FW, but not nearly frequently enough to slow down that gravy train. I'm on that gravy train every night.
Fro me the
"Hierarchy of Disfunction" looks like this:
-FW Missions (fix by making them not blitzable, add web towers)
-High Sec Incursions (lots of ideas, don't know which would be best thoguh)
-High Sec lvl 4 SOE and Thukker missions (SOE more than thukker, though there is a market for Nomad implants, fix by upping the LP costs of probes, probe launchers, virtue implants in SOe store) I do these semi afk with a Golem while running high sec incursions.
-Everything else
CCP needs to do a comprehensive, top down then bottom up review of PVE in this game, because EVe pve is so "Gamable" (pun intended) it's not even funny. PVE isn't just a way to make isk, ideally it should be a facilitator of content creation ie "you try to make isk via killing npcs or exploring, other people try to stop you either directly by shooting you or indirectly by beating you to the good loot or manipulating markets to make your loot worth less". As it is now, PVE in EVE is incredibly unbalanced and, if anything, a content
KILLER.Except in wormhole space, Wormhole PVe works right. max danger, max rewards, fights start when someone tries to attack someone else's PVE operation.