No trade-in value on ships?

Why is it that only the starter ship has a trade-in value? How am I supposed to work my way up to the better ships when buying any of them forces you to start virtually from scratch each time you upgrade, and what incentive do I have to purchase anything other than a merchant or a dreadnought when I won’t be able to trade in for something better?

People have been saying that the Corvette is pretty good value for money if you don’t plan on trading much, and I personally run Frigate because I don’t care that much for combat (nor for feeding a Dreadnought crew) – I just needed enough hold space to take the Merchant Venturer’s stuff up north and enough hull to survive a Lorn-Fluke.

That being said, the lack of trade-in value for the upgrade ships has been pointed out many times, both here and on the Steam forum. I don’t recall the devs responding to those threads during the length of my own acquaintance with these forums.
edited by Fretling on 1/30/2015

Frigate every time, ignore the dread :) As for incentive to change the ship, I don’t see the point, the steamer is good for most jobs, barring mass transit of sphinxstone or collecting certain massive rewards, and when you’re ready to trade up, you should have figured out whether you’re going the trading or shooting route, at which point you make your choice once. If all else fails, the dread is all things to all men, but I found life boring in the dread, nothing out there in the world that can cause a problem :(

I love my Frigate, and don’t really feel the need to spend money on a Dreadnought; in the Frigate with good Iron and Mirrors I can take out Mt. Nomad (without the Icarus in Black), and it’s got enough hold space to let you do a moderate amount of trading.

Agreed, large enough to take the Venturer to the Horizon and have enough fuel to make it back, some armour (not as much as the dread, but live a little :) ), and enough hits to handle pretty much anything out there.