I doubt it really has much to do with the number of people that it potentially affects. The real reason that this is news in the game is BoB is the enemy of enemies in the game. BoB is the evil empire in the game, especially since the t20 incident (dev spawned stuff for them but apparently they never used it). The players of EvE focus on what BoB, Goonswarm and Red Alliance (or whatever there allaince is called now) are doing because they are the Goliath (BoB) and David.

This is an interesting idea, and I imagine we will see more of this type of stuff in the mainstream media because of the increasing number of people playing. EvE is especially poised for this because there are more and more players playing in one world

No ship is persistent, the super-capitals (titans and mother-ships) can not dock in stations, but when the pilot logs out the ship does do the warp and vanish (eventually, the align takes forever). But as with all ships the aggression timer does apply, so the if the ship was aggressed, the ship itself does not disappear for up to 15 minutes (this is how the first couple of titans were destroyed, pilot logged before the timer was up)..

That being said the POSes are persistent but they can also defend themselves in a limited fashion.

That may very well be true, after all some people, especially ofter a lot of training are still high level functional with blood alcohol levels that are almost deadly.

As for the interrouter technologies, not that I have every used them in a practical environment, it is entirely possible that you fixed the problem at hour 32 and didn't even realize it, because you were focused on something else.

The other thing to keep in mind, is something that psychology has noted regarding peoples multitasking ability. After so much practice (they figure 1000+ repetitions) a person can a task without consciously thinking about what they are doing. A good example of this is with driving, experienced drivers can reach the state where they are no longer consciously thinking about their driving and the vehicle is being controlled by the subconscious. In this state the driver does not remember how they got to where they are now.
So theoretically this effect applies to higher level skills as well (writing, protocols, configuring devices). Based on the way that you referred to Level3 have had to do the same/similar procedure many times, the situation you describe could have gone to the subconscious level. If you are able to do the same time doing something that you don't normally do, write a book or code a module for example, the result would not be as good.

No, the great-grandparents attitude is why all of the jobs are going off-shore or to the Mexicans. After working for that long, someone who hardly knows anything will be able to do a better more consistent job then he can at that point. The great-grandparent poster is hardly functional after his first 12-18 hours.

The grandparents attitude, in moderation, is what makes keeping the jobs on-shore worth it, because a normal worker can do a better job more efficiently if he is working normal hours.

There are, but they are normally more expensive and quite often have fewer features software features. I know that both Linksys (by Cisco Systems, Inc. :)) and D-link still make one or two wired only models.

They are normally buried under/behind the Ethernet cables and Ethernet switches.

IANAL

Yes, but don't forget that the GPL does not disallow paying for the software, the major thing that the GPL disallows is redistribution without the source code.