You select the level of abstraction for different things based on what is and isn't the most fun to delve into. If your group enjoys poking every surface with a 10 foot pole, it's not wrong to play with that level of granularity. It's just that all the interesting things you can do with a 10 foot pole are pretty mined-out after 50 years so we tend to direct our attention elsewhere.
There's a limit to what people can afford to buy, though. "Hey I made this sweet artifact it's worth 1000gp" "Cool, I can give you uhhh...THREE chickens for it?"
Besides, federation prison is just a sunny beach on New Zealand anyway. The worst part is getting stuck in the delta quadrant but that happened like one time.
It's not unheard of for one (human) twin to absorb the other in the womb. It's more along the lines of a cellular mixup, though, rather than a battle. And of course the mother even being aware much less sensitive to it is nonsense.
I'm not familiar with the layoffs you're alluding to, but the general trend everywhere was that everyone started up lots of speculative projects using borrowed funds when interest rates were low...if you can borrow money at 1% interest, you only need to make a 1% profit to break even. Then when interest rates go up and you suddenly need to be making a 7% return, you suddenly have a lot of projects that are losing money which then get cut.
Honestly, it's a niche service for an already niche hobby. Why would I leave my house, where all my snacks, drinks, prepared game materials, minis, computers, and audio devices are, to come play at a noisy expensive card table somewhere else? It's only really going to appeal to people who, for whatever reason, can't play in anyone's home, or aren't welcome at the tables of anyone they actually know.
You select the level of abstraction for different things based on what is and isn't the most fun to delve into. If your group enjoys poking every surface with a 10 foot pole, it's not wrong to play with that level of granularity. It's just that all the interesting things you can do with a 10 foot pole are pretty mined-out after 50 years so we tend to direct our attention elsewhere.