When I played Frontier all those years ago, the Newtonian physics model was one of the biggest problems I had with the game. It turned out that the best and easiest way to dogfight pirates was to set the autopilot to crash into them, assuming you'd set up your ship with plenty of shields. It was really hard or impossible to do otherwise.
The original Elite had a more arcade-type feel to the combat, which was fantastic. Both X3 and Freelancer had this kind of flight model too. It's more intuitive for people and more fun to play with, so I'm glad Frontier have done it rather than something more realistic.
Also I like the idea of travelling at some multiple of C through a system. It's quite a well thought out mechanic actually.