I like the removal! To me it was an attempt to attract players by giving away cheap cookies which doesn't belong into EVE at all. Improving and creating exciting game content is the way to go to make players login and I hope all future efforts will focus only on that.

I also doubt that this was a real achievement: "We saw a pretty big bump in the share of folks heading out to kill something each day..." That bump above the average level of players who are "killing something" each day anyway doing PVE or PVP were likely the ones who were just flying quickly to a belt to get their daily cookie. Of course, everyone enjoyed the cookie but I doubt they enjoyed the way to get it.

And why should everyone be driven into the habit of "killing something"? There are a lot of players who like traveling, exploring around, mining, manufacturing, research, invention, trading, logistics, etc. - and if not always than at least in longer phases. Yes, the game is actually that good to found and enjoy a whole long-term career on not killing something. Don't touch that!

So desparate to feed your alts with free cookies that you can't bring more than ad hominem arguments? Or what's the point why you apparently like login-shoot a frig-logoff? If you want your skill training faster then you can work for it and buy skill injectors. You are playing long enough to know how to make ISK for them. And as a historical note: One doesn't found a corp for the sake of tax evasion when there is no tax to evade.