Nobody forces a crafter to dig, to fight or to do magic. Nobody forces a fighter or hunter, be she PvE or PvP, to dig, craft, or explore. And nobody forces a PvP only player to do any digging, crafting, scouting, or hunting.
Indeed. It's not a person forcing the rules, it's the game itself and its mechanics. Said crafter isn't forced to dig, true. But crafting and digging are going hand by hand. It would take ages to train crafting skills using only mob loot, buying mats from market or taking mats from others. So our crafter have to dig. What if he doesn't like digging? Well, good luck mastering these jewel craft branches in next, what, ten years? What if that crafter doesn't like to fight? Well, good luck surviving all the packs of aggro hanging around when you go out of town for a sightseeing trip. So the crafter have to train some melee skill, preferably to the top. He or she could neglect magic, but it's really useful to clean up some aggro, or rez others, and the crafter goes to train magic. There is still nobody forcing him to do so. But he have to. Maybe all he wants to do is crafting and searching for new recipes. Not melee. Not magic. Just crafting. But he have to do a lot of other stuff in order to enjoy what he wants to enjoy. Because otherwise all he gets is frustration and a ton of DP, thus he forced to go some strictly predefined way - train digging, train melee, train magic, get the gear, yada yada. You still call that game a sandbox? Mkay.
Same goes for a hunter or PvP player. He indeed could live for awhile using guild supplies. But how long that would last? "Hey you worn out that set of boss jewels our guild was struggling to collect in last half year! And you worn it fighting other like-minded jerks just because you wanted some fun? Ok, no more rare jools for you. Here, take this set of choice grade." Oops, sorry - you like PvP, but now you have to get better mats for better gear first. And there is no other way to get them, but PvE.
What you call "PvE rewards" are rewards for all, not for PvE players only. What you asking for are exclusive privileges for PvP players breaking the principle of Ryzom that all parts of the game are interconnected and have to cooperate.
Following your logic, supremes are "exclusive" and inaccessible for me as i don't like to wait for them to pop. Yet i recently dug some after wasting about 8 hours to get 20 units of mat. I didn't like it at all, nobody forced me, but i had to do it.
Everyone going along the same way whether they like it or not in so called "sandbox" game seems ok to you. Replace PvE with PvP and it becomes an "illogical and futile comparison". And people asking for more choices available to everyone are making "PvP class" as their choices don't fit yours.
*shrug*