What Ves had neglected to mention to his expert pilots was the situation was way more complicated than they thought.
The Mech Trade Association maintained a rather strict separation between second-class mechs and first-class mechs, especially in the Red Ocean where everything could easily get mixed.
Before pioneers gained their privileged status from the Big Two, they had to sign a set of agreements that subjected them to additional rules.
One of the more troublesome ones to Ves was that pioneers were not allowed to employ mechs that exceeded their class.
A third-class pioneer couldn't save a lot of money and invest in a squad of second-class mechs which they could use to bully their peers.
The same applied to second-class pioneers who were not allowed to invest in a first-class mech that was powerful enough to demolish an entire second-class mech regiment!
