They are proportional to his performance, he died in a protosuit, he lost money. If he had died in a militia suit he would have lost less money.

He's complaining that he isn't gaining ISK at a fast enough rate, dying less would increase that rate.

Almighty gets 32 kills and earns 500 K ISK for that match, he also died once.
Random gets 30 kills and earns 400 K ISk, he didn't die.

Almighty got more ISK, but he now has to replace his 200K fitting, so he really only gained 300K for that match. He knows what he has to do to increase his ISK gain rate, die less, but he's being stupid and instead complaining for no reason.

There is no problem. If you use Militia gear, you obviously have a lower chance of killing anyone above you, but your loses are minimal if you die. If you want to increase the odds of you killing your opponent/surviving longer and making more money, be prepared to pay the price if you die instead. It's just Risk vs Reward.

And?

Then don't use proto-gear? I still don't see the problem here. Quite frankly you're starting to sound like someone who's butthurt he died to a RE he didn't see in his proto-suit.

Gear costs money. Use expensive gear and die, make less money. A player needs to be able to look at the payout available for a particular match and figure out how much ISK to risk in the battle. Don't bring a suit into a training match that costs more than you'll make for winning the match, and then act surprised when you end up ISK negative. Sure cost/reward doesn't scale on a 1:1 basis, but no one is making any compelling arguments for why it SHOULD beyond "I want to use prototype gear all the time, even in high sec space against noobs learning to play the game".

You brought that tank to WIN, to SP farm, and/or maybe patch up your KDR, not to gain ISK.

Not at all. Make ISK by using cheap gear to minimize the amount of money lose if you die. Win by using expensive gear to maximize your chances for victory. The gambling only comes in when you want to earn more ISK than you would in your cheap gear, and the solution is to not lose your expensive gear. If you can't earn more ISK than you would by farming in the MCC; use cheap gear or get better. There is no problem here.

Because they are using significantly different gear.

The reward for "showing up" is "dwarfing" the reward for "doing well" because the reward itself is teeny tiny... Because we're beta testing in the new player starting area. In new player areas it's not uncommon for everyone to get a reward for participation, that's how you help new players get their feet under them. The only mistake being made, is taking gear worth as much as the battle rewards into the fight in the first place, and then expecting to make a profit.

If we get into faction warfare and the payouts aren't considerably higher, and the winners don't get the majority of the winnings... THEN I will agree that there's a problem. Assuming most winnings go to the team that WINS in FW, going AFK will put your team at a big disadvantage and make them much less likely to win, thus minimizing the sort of gains that can be made by AFKing in the first place. Heck, if a player loses enough in FW he might even have to slink back to instant battles with his tail between his legs for awhile, throw on some militia fits, and pull in some participation ISK until he has enough to head back out and take another shot at a real match again.

But instant battles are working precisely as intended as far as I can tell and need absolutely no changes made to them. You barely make enough in an instant battle to buy a set of protogear for a reason, the new player area isn't FOR protogear.