For me I hope that FDev continue to tweak the actual game we have now and optimise it (no wing drop crashes etc). Once they have it running at 100% to then start looking at going beyond the basics of what the original Elite was(as it was a single player game from the 80's).
Do we need guilds and stuff like that? I'm not sure tbh, there are external comms methods, discord et al, which even games WITH guilds in use as the ingame guild broadcasts are never quite good enough, so should we have in game guilds with tags? I suspect it isn't needed.
On the other hand I don't see an issue with you being able to join an in game minor faction or maybe just one of the superpowers and have it attached to you when you are scanned as per the NPC's, this would allow players to interact with you based upon your affiliation, "oh they are an empire person so as a privateer for the empire I wont attack them" I don't believe we need to be flagged with guild names, as I don't want to see "my little pwny" etc etc as lets face it they are not immersive.
As for space stations, I do believe they could, at some point, put in the ability to setup your own stations/land bases, which would take a HUGE amount of shipping of goods to even get it started, probably so it would need to be a group effort. Though I would also say that even if they can organise the huge setup, that once the station is running that to keep it running certain requirements are met (this would be basics like food and water that people don't really ship for a start) so the group/player who do set up the station have too ship in those requirements or the station closes down/becomes un functioning and after a set period of time could possibly be destroyed or taken over by a minor faction. In exchange the grp/player would have storage space they can play with, and use it as a meeting point.