That's the point you appear to be (deliberately?) missing - the early game experience WASN'T tedious for us - it was enjoyable (for me, at least). Taking longer <> Tedious
Now that I do have the credits to do whatever I want with, the game is different. I enjoy the game as it is now (for me), but to say the lead up to get to where I am now was "tedious" is frankly incorrect.
Ask a self-made IRL millionaire and one who has had everything handed to them on a silver plate which one appreciates their wealth more?
With the game in its current state, players are moving onto the "super wealthy" stage so quickly and I fear that they will simply become bored and leave in a much shorter timeframe.
I think this is an artifact of credits and ‘ship progression’ appearing linear, from the humble Sidey to the might of the Big Three (or Four if you like the pure chonk of the T10). Sure, if that’s your personal measure of progression that’s as good as any other. But what I’ve noticed in my own game, is that the experience started to falter somewhere in the mediums and I ended up trying out half a dozen different fits on a Crusader and Mamba, did a sprinkling of engineering on them, but could never settle on a role for them and they felt a bit... soulless. So I stripped them down and sold the hulls, and with my freshly acquired billions of space-bucks bought an Adder...
My
real progression feels more like it’s in the knowledge of the building and engineering ships, and now that credits are not an issue I’ve stopped moving ‘forwards’ through the ship progression and gone ‘backwards’; those little early game ships, with properly applied engineering have a LOT more to offer than when you first move up through them as you’re learning the game’s often obscure mechanics. You can easily miss their potential in your rise to galactic gazillionaire status with a Corvette for every season.
Of course, this is the personal experience of one pilot amongst many, and we’re all free to blaze our own trail in whatever direction we wish. I do not envy the devs the tricky task of balancing in-game earnings for both long-term veterans who’ve struggled up to their amassed fortunes and appreciated every single credit they fought for, and newer players who want a tangible sense of progression and feel like they deserve to be able to catch-up to an original backer in a reasonable timeframe, and not have a feeling of insurmountable grind between themselves and a fleet carrier.