All of the minipets, including rare drops, special rewards, and promotional minipets were all freely able to be traded in Guild Wars. From the Hydra, Mallyx, Livia, Destroyer, Vizu, Oni and so on, all could be traded with no restriction save for Hall of Monuments dedication; even after which they could still be traded. This is really a much simpler issue than most of the things people ask for.
Why are these special pets bound? Well, of course they want money. Any company has to make a profit and that isn’t a bad thing for us or them but, at the same time, this particular method of doing it has found lack of favour with many players. I believe there are better things they could do. One such thing would be to list the minipets, even the time limited pets (for the duration of their time limit), in the store for individual sale as I believe people would be much more likely to spend money on something they know that they’ll get rather than something to gamble and hope that they’ll get. I sincerely believe this is a better way for Arena Net to generate income.
The only minipets that should be bound are the Hall of Monuments rewards as far as I’m concerned. I do not want to lose the ability to make them indefinitely and they are also earned rewards. Anyone can continue to earn them without end. Then we get to the promotional minipets like Rytlock which is a one time reward per account. I see no reason that even it should be bound as we had identical situations in Kuunavang and Varesh in Guild Wars and they continue to be traded to this day.
tl;dr Should minipets be bound? They weren’t in the first game, and I see no reason for it here. It was obviously a strategy to generate income but, as a student of business, I feel that it was a poor one as I believe better methods (for all) are available. In the case of minipets like those in the Hall of Monuments (and should achievement bound earned rewards ever be seen again) they should obviously remain bound.
While I’m here, why were salvage kits and gathering tools bound after launch anyway? I… I don’t understand. Especially since they’re soul bound and not account bound (which many would accept as alternative). I think too many things are getting bound for insufficient reason.