As someone who bought the original white wireframe paint for the Cobra, I disagree with the original post in this thread.
It is not a kick in the teeth for those of us who own the white wireframe - the white wireframe is better anyway because it was a throwback to the original wireframe ships from earlier versions of Elite. The gold version is nice, but it's not the white version.
Also, Frontier cannot put the white wireframe paintjob for the Cobra Mk.III back on sale, because...
It was marketed at the time
specifically and exclusively as the
30th Anniversary Cobra Mk.III Wireframe Paint Job, and thus was priced at a very premium 10 UK pounds. The wording of the marketing for this at the time was very specific, and as its description suggests, was put on sale for the 30th anniversary since the first Elite game.
All the other Limited Time paintjobs were worded differently, which means they could be put back on sale at a later date. This specific one, cannot. I bought it in full knowledge of this fact, and this is the one paintjob which cannot be put back on sale - it is sacrosanct.
I'm pleased for others though who can buy a version of it in a different colour - I actually like the black and gold combination, those two always go well together.
Even if this year's paint jobs were, in my opinion, "low effort".
Perhaps 2018 will see us start to see paint jobs which take a bit more effort than just getting a can of Airfix metallic silver and spewing that all over a ship, or taking something like the white wireframe paint jobs and selecting Gold from a menu.
