Personally, while different seats would be nice, I think it's something that could wait until we have walking around.
Why? You ask.
Because when you're in it flying the ship, most of the time the seat you're in is invisible. It's behind you so you only really see it when you look around.
Except a lot of the ships in Elite are multi crew ones with other visible seats around you, if only the seat you were sitting in was the same it would be an other issue altogether.
Still no words from the devs, that's not something confidential is it ?!