The reason for stealing isn't because it is easy. You don't find enough gold on enemies in EA to buy a +1 warpick and +1 chainmail. You sell gear at 1/3rd and buy it at 8/3rds base price (soemthing like that). The reason you NEED to steal is because you cannot afford it with the ridiculous markup/down. You can steal anything you want in D&D, if you can see it in the shop you can lift it. Why would anyone buy something worth base 100gp for 250gp and sell them it for 28gp? No wonder the trader has a endless pot of gold.
You don't need to steal anything. I fully equipped all my characters with pretty much whatever I wanted and ended the EA with ~10,000 gold and did not steal a thing. The problem that exists right now is that its too easy to purchase anything, it feels like money is basically raining on you.
How to solve this? Trader buys at 80% sells 120% of base. Therefore you can get what you need and the trader makes a tidy profit. I am not trading a cow for magic beans, ill just steal it. Yeah and specialist traders makes sense.
Eh, I am fine with the markups as they are already.
Loot filter would solve all of this.
The fact that loot needs to be filtered, points out that there is too much of it to begin with. You are addressing the symptom, not the problem.
