The problem, at least in my opinion, is this: the cockpits in Elite have been designed so that from the pilot's point of view (sitting in the seat) you feel like you're surrounded by displays and equipment. /
But in reality, these elements are extremely far away from the character, who sits in a seat literally meters away from everything, in the middle of a huge empty space.
I don't really have much of a problem with that relative scale conceit.
The ships themselves are almost a kind of sci-fantasy middle-ground, between what might be functional, and what our sentimental idea of a spaceship is. In that context, nothing about their internal scaling really matters, because realism clearly isn't the main guiding star. If it was, then these ships wouldn't look anything like they do, and their interiors would represent proper zero-G workspaces instead of romanticised artificial-G ship/plane interiors.
The nitpicky rabbit hole is possibly bottomless... How are the pilots staying in their seats without harnesses? Why is there such a bias towards whacking great rear 'main' thrusters, when going very fast on just one axis in a vacuum (or low-G) is kinda pointless, and will cause you more problems? Why is there any sense of inertia and momentum during FTL flight, when the warp bubble has no properties of mass and conventional acceleration? How do the pilots withstand the forces of the glide stage (especially as they don't have harnesses... )?
Then there's the fundamental violation of basic Newtonian mechanics. Constantly increasing in speed with applied force would be a bit much, sure, but I don't see why they can't at least allow you to maintain boost velocity if you go FA-off or cut thrusters (on a very nerdy point, that'd make more bodies in the game genuinely viable for true orbital insertion).
So yeah, when the outsides, the insides, and the very flight behaviour are so romanticised, UI player scaling isn't much of an issue for me.
Also, as for--
The instruments and displays you feel surround you are very far, the holographic displays...
Why assume the pilot always needs to physically interact with them? The gloves seem to have haptic sensors, but there's no reason other combinations of technology can't relate more to gestural interaction (or eye tracking, or fancier cybernetic technologies). As you say, the station services, et al, panels are nowhere near the pilot's hands. But do they
have to be? Do you think the pilot would lean forward and tap Station Services or Launch? Either contact isn't necessary, or the designs are simply expressions of interaction that suit it being a videogame (the pilot model never moves their hands from the throttle and stick during panel interactions), which would be perfectly understandable. Elite is [unfortunately] not a simulation.
So maybe we agree there are issues, but I kinda don't see most of them as issues to be concerned or overly critical about - they are just design choices befitting a romanticised game. I might prefer more realism, but that wasn't FDev's intent, and it is their product, so I have to accept it for what it is, as opposed to what I'd prefer it to be.
The other problem I have with scale in the game is detail, or the lack of it. Look at, say, a landing pad from 1000 m distance. It doesn't really feel like it's a kilometer away. It looks like 80-100m at best. Why? Because graphics are not detailed enough.
That isn't really an issue with the game or level of detail (the Xbox can't even handle detailed renders of ships within range of the camera, i.e. there are insane levels of LoD pop-in. bump up the detail, and there'd be no real change on any sense of perspective/distance), it's the medium. Plus, experienced in VR people always tell a very different story.
As for a speculative future for the game where we get to walk around our ships; who know what they'll change, if anything. They'll not change the flight model, nor the exteriors, so I don't see why they'd change the interiors. Perhaps they'll just be economical, and shove more assets and 'stuff' into those gigantic oversize bridges, perhaps as terminals for some form of player interaction.
I do want space-legs, but I don't at all envy FDev trying to find ways to implement it and make it truly meaningful. They can't tether certain functions and actions to out-of-seat nodes/panels, but if there's nothing unique about the cockpit or ship interaction points, then there's no point to leave the flightchair, ergo no reason to walk around your ship.
I don't want some stock FPS model bolted onto the game, as it'll likely be fairly bad or at least horribly simplistic. And yet given FDev's obsession with 'shooting stuff' being a key interaction mode (shoot at ships, shoot at stuff when mining, shoot at Guardian sites, shoot at Guardian beacons, shoot from your SRV to harvest mats, and so on), if they don't include shooting stuff on-foot I'm not sure they'll be able to think of anything else...
Either way, I'm sure the final result will be both amazing and yet have some very 'interesting' design decisions.