Yeah, I talked about this in the OP as well but seems that the way the economy is shaped in the early game is intentional. Maverik wants the player to head into combat somewhat ASAP. If you’re fighting a lot then it’s quite easy to make the money (at least currently since you get so many captives). Transitioning into a “service and goods” economy is an effort for later, yeah, which IMO is made a bit harder by mansion upgrades being a bit tricky to unlock early on and that passive stat growth from jobs is quite low. Things do pick up, especially if you get a servant or two with exceptionally high value from some sort of special class or whatnot
In Strive 1 the game was more or less a rush to farm and then you win, in terms of resources so I think the overall shape is an improvement.
Agree that a way to check all classes in-game would be a good one, even classes that won’t be available for a given character. I feel the game kiiiiind of nudges against you having a lot of very different slaves and peons since they need a lot of investment to be worthy so having at least those be dangled in from of you could help make the exotic trader more attractive than the random people you pick up in dungeons