The way I look at it, traders are necessary to the feature of food as priests are to religions. Does that mean they are a popular class? Not necessarily, but just like those who encourage friendly religions to preach simply to ward off hostile faiths, traders are needed to handle food.
I remember after the 3rd invasion of Beluaterra it was somewhat more common there to be a trader as everyone was rebuilding. In fact, I had a trader who was raking in enough money to support the majority of the realm's military, enabling him to more or less command what he sponsored in Plergoth. I still say that the biggest piece to make the trader class enjoyable was the black market. Even with the current system, some sort of version of the black market will enhance the gameplay for the class and the other characters involved with the food.
Not finding enough food on the open market to make profitable trades? Maybe your black market contacts allow you to sell spoiled food, outright steal the food from a region like it used to, or maybe it just lets you use a trade that was otherwise restricted to complete a broker.
As for other characters who may have troubles rounding up food, an experienced trader can help you in securing food. Maybe that trader can even swap out rotted food in the region they're stealing from so that it isn't always noticed right away.
The main thing is how would the black market work? To the region of the knight, bring back a caravan, or do it only when brokering deals so that you benefit from one side getting ripped off?
The food itself is a great commodity, but every discussion I see is about how to balance out the need for food as a mechanic versus the need for food to give something to do for the trader class. The food itself isn't what used to make the trader class interesting, but instead it was the actions and perks that went with it. At the same time, food is usually only complained about when people can't find enough of it. Re-completing the trader class with features more than the little it has now will improve both by giving mischievous opportunities and extra mobility to food. The current "perk" of the trading class, extra distance, is a joke anyways. All anyone with trade options has to do is move to a marketplace, which traders rely on already anyways.
I don't mean to be rude, but the revamp of the trade system just seemed kind of half-assed implemented just to accommodate food being shuffled some on a local basis without caravans/ox carts. It didn't really add much of anything, but it seems like it lost a lot.
