SE - Default 3rd Retainer before Fees

[Gilthas]

Sure, let's all ask our FC to clear away a chest tab and give us exclusie access to it every time we have to take out a raptor hide from another character.

Find a better FC then.

Three starting cities, 1 retainer per city as the baseline. That's how it should have been from the beginning.

This makes zero sense since you're trying to associate two different things just to come up with a reason why you should get a third retainer. I mean, your argument would completely fall apart if SE gave you a third retainer, but reduced the inventory and MB slots of each retainer by 1/3, while increasing the duration of ventures by 50% too.

Player two gets the money s/he needed, while player one is still playing and selling.

I won't disagree that having extra retainers gives a player an advantage, but you're completely overlooking that the game already gives an advantage to players who pay more. People paying a standard fee can have 8 characters on a single server (each with 2 retainers), over people paying the entry fee. Having extra characters is a way better tool to monopolizing markets than extra retainers so you're really reaching if you want to argue that extra retainers is what's breaking the balance.