I would stop playing ED if it became EVE first person. I think the mechanics work quite well as is, sure there could be improvements - there isn't a game out there that couldn't be improved upon.
Story time - earlier this week I was out exploring the area that is supposedly the "Formidine Rift." Trying to figure out what is out there and what should be found, also charting my way through without the GalMap route plotting because it just doesn't work out there. Well after over a month out there, I came back. I had a DBX stripped down to the hull just to get 35LY jumps out of it. Took some damage due to heat and a few rough landings so I sold it and picked up a Viper Mk III when I got back - leaving my Vulture docked - Engineering the Viper for more maneuverability and testing different load outs to make it as potent a fighter as possible. Picked up a surface mission, wasn't paying attention when I picked it up - that I had to take out a generator and also the base was on a planetoid 300+KLY away from the star. After a long cruise there, I come out just above the base and greeted by what seemed to be a mission accomplished message. Confused I went to the surface, and I saw a light scooting away from the base. Some player was hustling along the surface in their buggy away from the base and a short time later they would park in their Python and watch me fire away at the station to no avail. Whatever, I figured they had destroyed the generator just as I had arrived which I would find out was true when I arrived back at the station I picked up the mission at. Pretty lucky how that worked out. So now I wanted to unlock another Engineer, I jumped to a star system near them and went to a conflict zone to get some combat credits. While attacking ships I got lucky again and chose the faction another player was already with in that zone... or more they got lucky I did. After I took out a few ships I saw the player was in trouble, put all into the engine and boosted to them, took out two ships and brought down the FDL they were fighting to around 2% so they could kill it but the player was in a bad way. So ended up getting a future wingman in game through what supposedly only Star Citizen can do through "emergent gameplay."
