As for bans, I remember many of the cross play conversations from a year ago or more. I also remember many of the discussions about PvE servers. And yes, there were bans. But not because they asked for either of them. Because the conversations ended up falling into same old tired insults. There were at least 5 people and most likely more, but 5 people that I remember in those days. Always on one side or the other of the argument, that would get extremely heated. So anyone that is telling you they got banned because of these discussions most likely is forgetting to tell you about how far they went in the conversations. Many of them were even warned, many times over, before the ban took place.
As for a PvE server. I see nothing wrong with it personally. In fact, I would play on one occasionally, so I could play with my 10 year old son. And mostly just so we could play and avoid the toxicity. And yes, there is still toxicity, even today. Just last week I was solo sailing, just out and about, grabbing gems and fish from ship wrecks, maybe even fishing myself. Not once, but twice, a brig with three players on them saw me and decided to sail over and attack me. I saw them and was able to out sail them and keep them at bay. Since the combat "balancing" I get steam rolled far too often, way more than I used to, and I know that I am no match for 3 blood thirsty pirates on my own. So for now, if I am solo, I simply keep away. And while I normally get great joy out of doing that, I was not in the mood. So both times I sailed out to red sea. Each time, I got boorish messages in Xbox app from them. They were borderline on whether I could report them. I didn't want that. I just wanted to sail around and boost my hunters rep some.
Having said that, I love SoT, so why couldn't I have a way of playing without the harassment on occasion?
I will tell you, I used to have hundreds of friends that played SoT. The vast majority of them left because the combat system sucks and they simply don't want the PvP. I guarantee, if there was a PvE mode or server, they would return to the game. For some reason, PvP in SoT seems more toxic than it does in other games. I am not sure why that is, but it seems to be the driving force behind people leaving the game.
Now, I have had to resort to using LFG just to find people to sail with. And even then, I am just not in the mood to sail with random people, so I go it solo. Now, having said that, I would probably not sail in a PvE server all that often. Most of the time it would be with my son or on those occasional days where I just want the beauty of the sea, wind in my sails, along with some peace.
Many other games have a PvE mode of some sort or another, why can't this game?