The emphasis certainly changed from warriors in STNG to business people in DS9.
There was the mercenary in the episode to rescue Quark’s mother.
And Quark *did[i/] best a Klingon in a bar fight. 
the feringi that decked riker may have been a member of the ferengi merchant marines… thier the more adventurous profit seeking arm of the ferengi government, fueled by hyperion bettle snuff!
Not really. Kozak, being drunk as a targ, fell on his own knife after pulling it on Quark.
The East India Company had their own navy.
That’s what the smiley was for, Fella.
Yes, bested him with the Ferengi martial art of stair fu.
Klingons could juggle:[ul]
[li]knives[/li][li]Axes[/li][li]Swords[/li][li]Fire[/li][li]Live explosives[/li][li]Jars full of acid[/li][/ul]
Well, you get the idea.
Any race must have a certain amount of internal variation, just to survive.
it was kind of like that… wish i knew where the book i had about ferengis was…
but at the time the grand nagus was in control of the flow of beetle snuff into ferenginar, he decided he needed this other planets territory so he tightened the flow of beetlesnuff (which is apparently addictive) but created the merchant marines and offered the soldiers thier own allotment of, guess what, beetle snuff!
oi i feel like a geek… i used to role play as a ferengi with my dad hee hee father son ferengi team… oh yeah!