Good transcript (interested parties should skip to 19:48 in the video) - but that's specifically what I'm referring to in my comment to Kristov. That isn't a definitive "no" (at least as I interpret it). I think there's room there for a guild/clan/alliance system to be implemented provided that the ossification he refers to can be avoided (and I presume that such development isn't too onerous - that depends on the precise vision being sought).
You may interpret it differently and neither of us can say we're right without further comment from the dev team. So unless there's further comment out there that I'm not aware of, I'm afraid my position on the topic hasn't changed - nor has my objection to players with a clear personal preference to maintain the status-quo to shout down people making suggestions in this area through appeals to authority.
Edit: Sorry - just to be clear. I respect the position that "Elite shouldn't have this functionality, because that's not what the game is about", even if I don't agree with it. You (Genar-Hofoen and Kristov) and I have discussed this on many times on more than a few threads. I believe that there are ways to address this topic which do fit into the ethos of the game to the benefit of all - including (bizarrely) solo/lone players.
There are other comments from David since that date, Elite live streams and such, where he makes clear that we won't see anything like this in the game, which is sad really, an MMO without guilds is just...messed up to me. But David isn't alone in his feelings about guilds either, there's a lot of vocal people who are rabidly anti-guild, many of whom actually have no actual experience with them at all, they just 'know' they are bad for games because their friend's uncle's counsin's sister's brother told them so...
That's why we won't see anything like this going anywhere, David has his own anti-guild mindset and a lot of the vocal playerbase shares that. Again, that's sad, and it's very messed up to me, what's an MMO without social groups?