You're looking at Elite from the Eve Online mentality. Lots of people make that mistake, I know I did initially after 7 years of playing Eve Online - it was a natural assumption that the next big space game would be something similar.
But Elite is the complete opposite to Eve Online in most respects.
In Elite you are a tiny insignificant speck in an infinite gameworld - the largest gameworld ever devised. That alone makes the mechanics of games like Eve pointless to try and impose on a virtual environment of this size. Those mechanics work in Eve because everyone is squeezed into a tiny tiny box (compared to ED). People are forced to interact due to its finite size and travel choke points. The whole game revolves around those interactions.
In Elite you could be online with 500,000 people and never see another player, so vast is it. It doesn't deserve to be lumped in with traditional MP games and the way they go about things. I believe we're seeing the birth of a unique multiplayer genre.
Switch your thinking from one of constant MP interaction, to one of occasional or casual encounters, and you'll start to understand all the concerns you've raised are moot points. You will probably see 50 times more npcs than you will real players once everyone starts to spread out, far and wide.
Multiplayer interaction is something that isn't forced, its something you occasionally experience on your personal journey through the game. There will be ways and means to get more of it - via in-game wars and conflicts you can sign up for, friends lists you can accumulate and add to, and probably even mission bulletin boards where players can seek other individuals to undertake a certain task together, but expect anything remotely like the Eve Online experience and you'll be sorely disappointed. This game will never be Eve 2.0.
