Contraband Cargo reward structure does not make sense

Sounds like you're saying they should remove the ship shards from the earlier tiers. That way it wouldn't be "incongruous with all other equivalent resource event reward structures in this game" since none of the challenges, credit heist, smuggler's run, training droid heist, or fleet challenges offer shards either.

I kind of thought the shards were a nice way for folks to build up to the final tier but I'm ok with your proposal to remove them.