Yeah, give some purpose to going out and seeing the world. If you can stick around a single island and fight just about everything you need...it defeats some of the purpose. I'd also like to see some XP system for those who want to do more trading (certain XP for Y-dollar amount gained through selling resources?). Not big XP, not game breaking, but making stuff more worthwhile. For instance, I have tons of money - enough for a couple of larger ships, but I'm stuck slowly grinding through battles to level up so I can even use a larger ship.
I don't mind a bit of grinding, but I'd like to be able to grind in a few different ways, vs. just gunning other ships into drift wood.