Cashboxes didn't come out explicitly from econ perks to Bios.
Cashboxes came out so, as I continue to build future versions of the core, there are no random factors that will muck up game analysis. Same reason random tech spawns came out. After I look at a game, I don't have to go, "well, this team got 15k in cashboxes so they could buy x, x, and x..." I can look at a game, look at factions, look at tech paths, find out how many sectors or rocks were mined on what money settings and get an exact number - including paydays per minute - on how much money a team gained, how much it spent, and what it spent it on. It also slows the mid-game phase down in a pleasant way, I think.
Let's talk about an example for a moment. Your team wants to bomb early in the game. You buy bombers, and your team commits to bombing. Your bombers are eyed, the other team camps up stops you with mini1 ints or gat1 figs. Problem is, you haven't had any miner offense, and the other team just unloaded 30k from mining out a full sector. That team's commander is going to be inclined to spend a good chunk to buy Mini2/Boost2, or Gat2, DF2, Crs2 - tech that will help his team kill your bombers. Previously, his team could just find all that stuff and he didn't have to worry about it. He didn't have to spend any of that money on any kind of Mk2 tech aside from maybe enhanced fighters or stealth fighters or interceptors. He could have taken most of that 30k, clicked "upgrade expansion/supremacy/tactical." Five minutes later, he has heavy ints or advanced fighters and you are utterly $#@!ed because you spent all that time and money investing in bombers and you can't match the other team's tech. Research cost, per-unit cost, the time your team was out bombing and not on miner defense so you lost a few miners here and there. Buying all those Mk2 tech items? The other team just matched the cost of your bombers and, as a result, will probably have their advanced tech delayed by another 5-10 minutes, giving you more of a window to get that clutch bomb run to kill that pain in the ass enemy forward base.
Permaprobing other sectors? You should do that because they will kill you if you don't, not because OH A SHINY JUST SPAWNED IN THAT ENEMY SECTOR IMMA GO GET IT. Not having cashboxes means protecting your miners is more important for every faction. Not having cashboxes means you can win even more decisive victorious should you destroy all of the other team's miners. Not having cashboxes means that EVERY He3 rock you can mine is now more important - and so is expanding across the map to get access to more of them.
In a sense, this makes being Tac even MORE valuable. Just the act of having stealth fighters means the other team has to tie up people watching miners, which means they aren't attacking yours. I'm not even sure I like that facet of stealth, but it's a very difficult paradigm to address and there are more important things to address before I reanalyze the way stealth fighters work.
And yeah Hsharp, I may just kill powerups as well so there are no treasure shenanigans at all.
What I'm hoping for is that, removing alot of the random nonsense and raising the bar for acceptable commander performance, aspiring commanders will be more inclined to more thoroughly learn good habits (expanding well, managing miners, spending money intelligently), and pilots will need to perform better as well as they will need to be more protective of their miners and more aggressive against enemy miners, and not off wandering aimlessly around the map thinking "OH MAN MAYBE A CASHBOX OR TECH PICKUP WILL SPAWN IN THIS COMPLETELY EMPTY SECTOR FAR AWAY FROM WHERE ALL THE ACTION IS OH MAN I HOPE I CAN PICK IT UP"
