Eve handles large scale battles just fine. The problem is, the term "large scale battle" gets redefined every time their network code gets updated. Over the past few months there have been dozens of large scale battles with less players in this particular matchup, but still having hundreds more players than would be possible in years past.

As for only having 8 hours a week to play, eve is probably one of the most casual-friendly games out there. Skills train whether you're online or not. All ships, even the basic newbie ships which require virtually nil resources and training time play a role.

He hacked the logins which is pretty much equivalent to hacking an email account. The eve online thefts were all perpetuated via in-game mechanisms and since the game's terms state that all in-game items are property of the maker of the game, there was no actual IRL theft to prosecute.