Crime & Punishment

No they are not..

Thanks goodness I didn't choose a career in ganking.. it seems soo damn hard to attack someone knowing where they are, how they are fit and what fleet effects may be in play... and... and.. and I would have to find some friends to help me..
CCP.. you need to fix this ASAP.. for the sake of alt gankers all over new eden..

Exactly all these highsec buffs hurt the newbies because they remove one entire profession from them. The mining barge ehp buff hurt the newbies.

Want to solve the NPC character WD evasion-issue in a brutal, but highly effective manner?

Allow the ability to Wardec an NPC corp by joining the opposing Faction Warfare militia. Buff the Faction Police forces according to security rating of the system. -1.0 systems - cops are Grade-A, down to -0.5 systems - same as they are now

End results?
NPC characters will only find security (even greater than they do now) in 1.0 systems. As they wish to venture out into lesser sec, the risks get progressively larger. Player-owned corps (which can be wardecced conventionally) see no difference. Concord mechanics need not be affected, as this is Warfare.

additionally,
FW participants can also take to raiding opposing state systems (at progressively greater risk, of course) and blow up the opposing NPC characters. They are enemies of their state, after all. They could even offer their services, as a Para-Military Merc would, to deal with those pesky-NPC war dodgers...

Oh, and if you wish to visit the other trade hubs, you might want to check your Faction standings first.

I obviously don't have reliable stats, but I know for a fact that a player that is running botting software who I have reported several times using the 'report bot' feature is still merrily running them 23/7 in Procurers and has been for months. I am not sure if CCP staff cuts have reduced the number of people looking for botters, or the guy is just using a good macro program that leave no conclusive evidence, but it is frustrating to see someone blatantly cheating for so long go unpunished.

In any case, changes to NPC/player corp mechanics, and some changes to make mining less scalable by multiboxing, would go a long way to combating not only botters, but also the multiboxers that distort the economy so that "regular" players are unable to make a space living mining.

With all due respect the OP is about nerfing the tank on Skiffs, and/or your options to deal with a large well managed NPC mining fleet:

"Are Skiffs overpowered insofar as given a certain scenario they are too difficult to move on or destroy"

Ima Wreckyou presented a reasonable counter to the fleet operation in post #10, whereby neutralizing the Orca by bumping alone disrupts the operation without having to resort to ganking or nerfing the Skiff. This was agreed to by the next series of posts, and It also remains unchallenged in this thread. Logically this leads to the conclusion that it is accepted as satisfying the OP.

Your OP has already been satisfied.

edit* Found your post in F&I
Also, news out about Multiboxing rules

I am(reluctantly) okay with people being able to earn isk in extremely safe environments so long as the isk is substantially worse than what risk takers can make.

If you want to mine in an alt corp with 100k ehp there should be serious yield trade offs over the guy with 20k ehp at risk of wardecs.

Why do you think they were designed for 0.0 operation? And drones count as a weapon. And I think they weren't intended to mine alone in nullsec.
From the "Mining barge (lore)" page from evelopedia, "For many years, miners relied on repurposed combat ships and a few specialized cruisers to harvest the vast asteroid belts of New Eden. These ships, while effective, suffered from numerous issues. Mining lasers required constant managing in order to maximize yield and small cargo holds meant only small hauls could be pulled in at one time. Mining frequently needed to be carried out in large teams; not only must there be miners and protective ships, but specialized haulers needed to carry the ore back to base."
So now they don't need specialized haulers, just protective ships.

Also, from a devblog a couple of years ago:
The Covetor and Hulk cater to group mining operations due to their large mining capability, low EHP and storage, forcing them to rely on others to haul and resupply them with mining crystals.
The Retriever and Mackinaw are specifically designed for autonomy purposes, as their large ore bays allow their pilot to stay inside an asteroid belt for longer without having to dock.
The Procurer and Skiff are made for protection against suicide gank, or NPCs, by giving a large enough buffer to react to incoming attacks, while paying for that with a lower mining yield.

There unfortunately isn't a better option. I would love to see more options for gankers, but Concord and faction police invalidate anything other than "dps very fast".

Btw, skiff had the same yield as a Mackinaw. The only advantage of the Mackinaw is it's better for afk mining in super safe environments(like 1.0 space).

Not exactly the same, since the Skiff would fit a damage control. But they have the same base yield and the same amount of low slots (thus the same amount of fittable MLUs).

And then buff catalysts.
Give them blaster cannons (with 99% reduction in cpu/pg), and extra low slots for tracking mods. Add a bonus to scram range and a drone bay for sentries too. Hisec will never be the same again