regarding the market I like it that it is so far away to reach
main reason
1. Pushing
This is a very well thought way to avoid the creation of 100s of multi accounts with the sole reason to push a main account. If everyone would have at start the ability to build a market , pushing and multi creation would come in play.
Now with that , you could also look at the farming. The mood/strenght and sharing with other island players make it pointless for people to use auto farm scripts.
If you start to dissect the game you will see that it is pretty well balanced qua resource production and that it protects fair players.