A reminder that Nelson said he’s going to be giving Steam economy integration careful reconsideration. (Mainly see: Specialized "Economy" - #31 by SDGNelson)
Because if most people aren’t going to use a feature, and if it’s not going to be treated as a core feature of the game, then it really doesn’t have a place to begin with. Settings are fine, but I disagree with your argument for implying all things should be a setting: things that would add extensive features and isn’t enabled by default shouldn’t be an option, and things that are pertinent to the game’s framework or would only satisfy and incredibly small niche of the community usually shouldn’t be an option.
Personally, I think we’re running out of areas to actually add bandit NPCs. There’s no reason we should throw them in anywhere and everywhere “just because,” and there’s not too many high-tier areas where we don’t already have zombies we could put there instead. However, if they were implemented, properly, then yes I’d appreciate it being a server setting just like other entities are. Would be kinda weird if people could disable (or increase the spawning of) zombies but not bandits, tbh.
Sometimes people ask for things that are legitimately off the table (although even then most things still really aren’t). Sometimes people suggest things other people disagree with, and as such have a discussion about why they disagree with it on this discussion board.