If you think those ships are traveling across oceans to other continents without taking trade goods, then you're dreaming. And if they can travel enough to take nobles, then they can certainly have trade routes.
However, I think a lot of this is besides the point. Technology levels and physical realities are the only real limitations, as the Battlemaster world is so clearly different from ours that further parallels are sketchy at best.
We leave in a world that is constantly under threat from monsters and undead, and is now being invaded by Daimons straight out of Hell itself on a semi-regular basis. The implications of true sex equality would have an even more astounding impact, as does the fact that time doesn't function in the same way.
This is not a medieval simulator game. This is a light fantasy game. Telling people off for wearing plate mail even in their sleep, sure. Telling people off for wearing plate mail because it's not within whatever boundaries you've set for the game is just plain silly, and discouraging people who are making an effort to make their characters more real than just bits on a computer screen is not in the best interests of the game.
