When I first began playing CT, I never questioned the starship economics. But as time went on - and I read more and more of the Classic Adventures - I came to realize something:

1) Very, very few of the pre-generated characters ever had a starship as a mustering out benefit.

2) Most of the pre-generated characters had at least several hundred if not several thousand credits on hand (in mustering out benefits).

3) Most of the adventure lead-ins required the characters to NOT be able to easily leave the planet where the adventure was intended to take place.

Adding all of this up, I realized that the fees for travel between star systems were deliberately set high enough that the typical beginning character could not easily afford such travel (at least not while remaining unfrozen). And the rest of the starship economics were preforce calculated based upon this requirement . . . . leading to insanely inflated prices for everything related to starships and interstellar trade and (inevitably) everything else as well.