I haven't looked into this thread until today, and I still haven't read all of it. But I've been playing Starfield pretty much exclusively for over 530 hours by now and have no plans of stopping. Starfield has delivered a lot of what I always wanted in ED but FDEV couldn't or wouldn't want to deliver.
I haven't had a new ship in ED to tinker with since 2018. In Starfield I don't just get to buy tons of ships, but to design them from the ground up, including interior layout. And then I get to actually use that interior, my crew is there and not just a name in a list. And I get an almost proper Armstrong moment on every planet if I want to. Bethesda have been a bit lackluster with the actual use of the interiors with them only adding passenger and crew slots, crafting table and a bed to sleep in, but modders have already expanded on that. Infirmaries (if you have an actual medic in the crew) and brigs now actually have a function.
And oh my god, mods. Even without the proper tools out yet, the mod list on Nexusmods has already way more pages than this thread. I have ~70 mods installed.