Some people get absurdly lucky and will get their best outcome on the first roll, some will take multiple weeks to get the materials they need due to bad mission spawns and then to add salt to the wound, bad rolls on top. So put the two together? No. That's where it falls down for me, if you want the Engineers to be crazy tweakers, great, knock yourself out, but then they have to be accessibly crazy tweakers, the current setup just makes them inaccessible and unrewarding for anyone but the most dedicated of forumites (most of whom are here).
In fairness, they have limited that issue to some degree. It's again that problem between giving people something which has a lot of plus-sides (a Python that can now outrun a Cobra is not something I'd have ever imagined) there has to be significant reins there. I still think the problem is the Engineers requires a particular type of gaming which doesn't suit everyone but everyone naturally wants the rewards. If you take it slow, plan it out and don't over-focus, it isn't too bad on its current set up. But yes, like I said, I would not pretend for a moment it's perfect.
All of which are essentially arguments which would require either high fraction delays or full travel time delays, which render the concept of ship transit useless, so they can be disregarded from the gate, and the people who say there should be a "short" delay, well that's akin to saying "Go take a tea and your ship will be ready" so there might as well be no delay at all. Effectively you've two options - Instawarp or No warp. Anything with a time delay is just inconvenience for the sake of it, narrative is just a smokescreen argument for "I had to suffer through a ton of loading screens so I'm going to make you wait."
I really don't agree with that. For me, the whole idea of ship transportation as I saw it before the announcement was a long term strategy. You have 2 or more ships. Without a sidewinder, or selling one ship, moving your bases becomes difficult. I was in Sol, I'm now stationed near Farseer in Decait for obvious reasons. I did the old selling my smaller ship, moving to a new station and building up a new one there. To me, the point of this was so you could make occasional moves of your stored ship(s) so it doesn't limit players to one area. Being Elite I ALWAYS thought there would be a tag to this - not cash, realism. I expected if I wanted the luxury of moving my second, third, forth ship around the universe, that wouldn't be cheap and it wouldn't be fast as it's a non-essential factor. Moving two ships would be fine if it didn't feel a bit of a game-shunt to have to buy a sidewinder to do it. It felt it needed something to make that a little slicker.
My point is this was never an essential game element. It's a bonus to move a second ship really, but a good bonus for the game and player. You can ferry move an unused ship. Now if this meant you couldn't do anything while it was being shipped, that would be a game changer. But you're not stranded. You still exist. With a ship - the ship you felt best suited you while you made your move. So you're not left twiddling your thumbs. And if you DON'T want to be left twiddling your thumbs, in most cases, move it yourself!
Yes, not all cases, but you aren't being delimited, because it's a bonus feature, not a key one. You can exist in Elite, as many do, if nearly everyone does for a certain period of time, with one ship. Taking time for that ship to move creates a cost to the player, means they have to consider their own strategy in world (do I wait at the station it's going to? Do I pop to Sol for some fun while that's being shipped? Do I do an upgrade in this ship or get what I need to upgrade the other?) The consequences to making the move has benefits to the player as it forces him to consider his role in Elite while it's moving. It adds to the game, it adds to the game spirit, it adds to the universe.
Personally, if it was me, I'd have planned it the other way round. You SEND the ship on from the station it was parked in. So it travels while you do. In that sense you could even insta-ship without it damaging the immersion. It would take as long as it takes you to get there!
I've played in Skyrim with full cheat modes on, but then I've gone back, wiped out all the cheat mods and set it up as a much tougher game using Frostfall and the like, however, the point there is I -choose- my difficulty settings and I'm not -imposing- them on other people. If I want to have full on realism in a game, that's my good right, but I'm not going to force every other Skyrim player to do the same, they can do as they please. Now there's an argument here that there's a shared universe, so the change is going to affect everyone, casual, mid or hardcore, but I would take a firm guess that the hardcore group (and I am in the latter as a HOTAS exclusive flyer) are in the minority, and even I'm overjoyed at instawarp, because frankly I don't find the concept of shuttling around in little ships to move my big ships around *FUN*, it's not, it's boring as all sin, and getting rid of the busywork for me is nothing but net. Now I can simply use ONE fast ship and then warp whatever big ship I require to the location and get laserboppin'.
You have to face that SOMEONE is going to be imposed here. If you're not imposed by this move, then I am imposed. Someone loses out. You lost out (so far on the Engineers). The mechanic is imposed on you. That's life. I would rather we were all happy, but someone will have to.
But the human condition is constant. We fight for what we can't get, we take for granted what we can. You can bet the person who has had to graft for his Corvette will appreciate it more than the person who has Robigo'd his money as fast as he can. Give people insta-teleport, something which makes things simple for expansion but makes no sense to a game that has always made sure it was honest to the simulator, you actually take something away from the game.
Elite has people literally spending months to get the center lol. It's not a game that gifts for simplicity. It has an edge. Whether your hardcore or not, you don't have it easy.
The question of casuals/hardcore is a murky one too. I suspect (and this is VERY broad untested assumptions) that many casuals operate with one ship, maybe a back up now and then, not a range of A-rated ships. I could be very wrong. You could argue that ship moving is a mechanic for those who run fleets or more than one ship, which could be argued is the more hardcore crowd. That's not to say that makes this a "hardcore" mechanic and must cater to "hardcore". I'm not actually sure what hardcore is. Am I hardcore? I potter around in Solo mostly, with a Python and a Viper. I'm a Master combat, reasonable trader. I don't play it every night, nor do I really participate in CG. Am I hardcore just because I have an interest in the game? Personally I don't think this casual/hardcore distinction is relevant. The bottomline is ensuring that FDev don't make changes to the mechanic that dilute the game for all that they'll be hardpushed to wind back.
Just some thoughts to consider. I don't expect to change your mind, I'm just offering everyone really some ideas to mull over.