The problem is that having a strong economy is absolutely crucial to any type of playstyle and victory. As a result, traits that have good economic benefits tend to be much stronger than those without, especially on higher difficulty levels. A good example are the warmonger traits: Charismatic is the most powerful because of how well the happiness helps build one's economy. Aggressive on the other hand has hardly any economic benefit and thus gets weaker as difficulty level increases or the situation is not appropriate for all out war.
There is nothing at all wrong with having a trait based on seafaring and exploration but it has to have at least some economic benefit to have a chance of being balanced. Trade routes are a really suitable way to do this in my opinion. I can understand though that naming it Enterprising shifts the thematic emphasis significantly, so I have no issue with calling it Seafaring.
I absolutely disagree.
A trait doesn't need to have a direct economic benefit in order to be balanced. Look at say Joao. Joao's trait combo allows him to build a strong empire about as fast as say Darius I, who has two economy traits.
It's all about making sure a trait can do enough on its own, and that a trait can also have some sort of possible synergy elsewhere.
In this case, Exp/Imp means you have cheap settlers, workers, and granaries. That, to me, is better than having extra gold coming from my cottages (or my water tiles.)
If it's all about just making Seafaring and other traits balanced, why not actually -balance- them realistically?
If Protective is weak, you don't throw in a "+1 gold from walls" bonus, you throw in another bonus that works well with that Protective already does. In this case, the trait is all about defense. We've got cheap walls, cheap castles, Drill 1 and CD 1 right off the bat. The way to add on to this?
Try any of these:
*Increased chance of thwarting spies
*+10% to city defenses
*Increased GG points for battles within cultural borders
None of those three have direct effects on economy, but adding any one of them would easily make Protective that much better. And? They all fit with the theme.
Sure, I'll agree that, right now, Fin and Org -are- really powerful. However, I don't believe in them being the best traits in the game. I just think that they are (especially in Fin's case) the easiest to use.
If Protective was made better, for example, it'd mean you could focus more on empire management early on rather than building up defense against those pesky barbarians (Hey, that's another possible bonus. No Barbs Allowed... but that'd be kinda lame, since we already have the Great Wall).
More time focusing on early management and expansion rather than defense = stronger empire quicker. Not to mention that, ideally, you wouldn't need as many defensive units, which would save both money -and- hammers.
This is becoming more of a rant than anything so I'll just... shorten it:
Any trait can be made equal to the others without shoving in a directly financial aspect. Hammers saved, time saved, etc. any benefit like that can be equally beneficial.