However, if trading is added I do believe that the vast majority of these "Elootists" against it will be a lot more respectful. Id picture most of them moving on to other games almost immediately after its released. Disclaimer: This is just my opinion as I find the looter community is probably the most respectful, knowledgeable, and sensible group in TLOPO.
While I have a hard time agreeing with anti-traders, I don't presume that trading is objectively good for the game like they tend to presume trading is bad for the game (hence the whole "elootist" thing). When trading has never even been tested, no one (not even the devs) can say for certain trading will be "the death" of TLOPO. I'm not sure how you find this attitude "sensible" or "respectful."
Also, when you say stuff like "Id picture most of them moving on to other games almost immediately after its released," do you realize that makes pro-traders just want trading more, right? Don't get me wrong, I don't want the player base to decline by even a few pirates if it doesn't have to, but I think many players would accept a slightly smaller player base if it would be relatively elitist free (especially if the community becomes more attractive to new players as a result).
Let me put it this way: if we managed to hold a game-wide poll and over 50% of registered pirates were opposed to trading, I'd tell pro-traders to just accept it isn't going to happen. But not only do I not think this would be the case, the other arguments against trading (losing looters as part of the player base, introducing the risk of scamming, etc.) are very, very thin when you break them down.
As for losing players, either pro-traders will gradually quit until trading gets implemented or anti-traders will gradually quit after trading gets implemented. No matter what, people quit. Trading would also help fluff up the endgame of TLOPO, because maxed out pirates who don't have the time to loot for everything tend to decline in activity. Trading would give them a little more to do and some more weapons to test out.
And as for scamming, there will obviously be scamming attempts, but even a lazy attempt at regulating trade would squash most scams. Some have expressed concern over children's gullibility, but I remember playing RuneScape when I was about 10-years-old and no one could scam me -- not because I wasn't a gullible child but because the trading system in RS only allowed for trading items of comparable value (which is another reason why I suggested before to re-scale the item values in TLOPO). If a pirate is so young and gullible that they could be scammed in a regulated trade market, they're probably too young to be playing this game anyways.