The cases of what could be construed as 'space piracy' would likely come down to few isolated incidents in the 24th century regardless. And I think canonical data supports that (aka, the UFP didn't have to deal with cases of space pirates in its own backyard -and if it had, it was rare to say the least... at best it may register as an 'odd blip' on the whole in the 24th century). The Miradorn raider was seen in Ds9, which was near the Cardassian border... and Bajor was NOT part of UFP at the time... so, you're looking at mostly unaligned space when it comes to the Bajoran system and potentially significant area around it. In case of Acamarian Gatherers... I'd say this would have been a prime example of a 'rare occurrence'. In 2366 they expanded their operations to raid a Federation outpost and managed to steal a reactor. Prior to this, there hadn't been any reported cases of attempts to attack UFP targets... which leads me to think if it may have been more of a subconscious cry for help... because, lets be fair, compared to UFP, the Acamarian Gatherers presented no real threat - and UFP CAN be taken advantaged off by opportunistic individuals who may want to prey on UFP's desire to help others (so it wouldn't be too difficult for them to use those methods to gain access to the facility and end up stealing a reactor - but UFP security measures can sometimes be a bit lax - I'd say areas of critical importance would have to be a bit better protected). There is one thing that this discussion prompted me to think about. Its not space piracy per say... but in TNG when Geordi was going to Risa for his vacation, he was kidnapped and brainwashed by Romulans. In fact, even on DS9 we have heard maybe of one or two reports of people going missing on their way to Risa... but again, throughout the grand total of 14 years of combined TNG and DS9... having only a handful of cases is incredibly small... and for an area of space of 8000 Ly's the UFP controls in the late 24th century, that's quite a good record if you ask me. We have seen examples of individuals going to vacations in what seemingly was UFP space, but then somehow the Romulans or Cardassians managed to snatch up those inviduals. This leads me to think their shuttles were passing through (or close to) non-aligned space (giving the other party ability to snatch up those individuals).... or SF activity was negligible to non-existent there with no nearby sensor nets, so again, their ability to register such an occurrence would be impaired.
All we know was that the Lantree was equipped with 'class 3 defensive armaments,' whatever that means. As for being 'awfully tough?' I'm not sure how one determines something like that with a derelict ship just floating in space.
There was also Ro's raid on the Enterprise for medical supplies for the Maquis in "Preemptive Strike," which albeit was conducted partly as a component of her infiltration. Then later in the same episode the Federation tried to bait the Maquis into a direct convoy strike, by giving them a target they seemingly couldn't ignore. That plan might have worked if Ro hadn't switched sides, but the point is that the Maquis weren't above striking Federation targets when the opportunity availed itself. They viewed themselves as having been betrayed by the Federation, so such targets were fair game. As for how frequent pirate and criminal raids might be, I'd say that's up for debate. I think Deks is at least partly correct in that they probably wouldn't be that common in Federation space, but might be more of a concern in border areas where defenses are not adequate yet. Starfleet can't necessarily be everywhere at once, and we've seen cases of colonies and outposts being attacked by foreign governments when they were perceived as intruding.
The old "Bandai" solution, New Models, New Kits. If only Bandai were given the license for Star Trek StarShips & Merchandise. =D
Bandai did have the Trek license and produced some amazing kits, I have most of them. The NX•01, Refit, Enterprise E and Voyager, all prepainted and fully lighted. They were working on the Enterprise D when the license stopped, there are a smsll number of kits of that ship out there. The Refit has gloss/matte white aztecing which works really well, totally avoids the checkerboard look so common.