Rewards for job performance

[The Grim Sleeper]

So yeah, the MAJOR issue is the lack of items and the issue of money being superfluous.

Lack of items TO BUY, while lots of good stuff is available for free. Tool storage and Emergency Storage B are freely accesable to anyone with maintenance access, and contain some 5 toolboxes, 5 electical boxes, 5 multi-tools, 2 toolbelts, 2 Engi-EVA suits (with helmets that have both flashlight and welding shielding), several hull-breach carts full of materials, welding fuel tanks, etc. These are supposed to used patch up the station and not let every single explosion be a round ender. But people are way to fucking lazy to patch a hole; the shuttle gets called at the drop of a hat.
Limiting the number of cool stuff, like belts (and maybe fanny packs), multitools and those nifty helmets and putting them behind a (low) paywall could kickstart a 'need for cash'. Job related supplies should still given for free to those with the right access, but the same machines could also sell this stuff to the less fortunate. Consider a greyshirt making some scratch and buying a flash to protect his earnings.

As for money, my main beef with it is that the major money-spinning enterprises are solitary activities. ... want to get rich ... the best way to do so is to isolate yourself from the station as much as possible and spin your gold in peace. You aren't  going to see a barman get rich from making drinks, or a doctor from healing people. Which isn't so bad now when money is functionally pointless, but sucks the fun out of the game if most of the fun stuff is locked behind money.

This ^. Although the most reliable ways to earn steady bucks (while still having other kinds of fun) are still Mining and Botany (PTL is a bit of a special case), these affect the whole station with their side-businesses.
There is a similar problem with genetics: they sit in their special lab, making not money but superpowers, and don't leave until the shuttle is called, when the ubarmenschen leave their booth, leap/smash/telephase over to the Escape Sector, and secure it for themselves, rarely sharing their godpowers with the few peasants stuggling to stay alive till the timer runs out.
If only there was some way to cancel one problem with the other...