The 24 hour Temp kill on sight is only for killing players in guarded sectors. The sectors where you see all the hulks are only monitored. Source: https://www.vendetta-online.com/h/news_28392.html

Killing 3 players in a 7-day period, within a single faction's Guarded space, will result in that faction placing Temp KoS status on the killer for 24 hours. Exceptions are made for killing players of Hated or lower standing with the local faction, and active duels. This only impacts Guarded regions (ie, station sectors). Corvus stations ignore all kills and are not affected by this change.

Okay, I wasn't aware of that temp kos post, but shouldn't faction loss still pertain by killing dislike and higher ships in monitored sectors?

Currently it doesn't when killing NPC ships. I can't say for sure if this intended or not, as I am not a dev (but linking back up to Inc's post, he said they didn't see anything obviously wrong). Greenwall has a suggestion up to change that though.

NPCs have operated under different rules from players for a long time. Maybe it's a bug, maybe it isn't. I think debate without this basic confirmation from Incarnate is pointless.