EVE can only do what it does because it has point & click combat, time dilation, and a subscription to pay for hefty server infrastructure. That's not technically possible for a game where you have direct control of your ship and guns, so Frontier aren't even trying to emulate it. In fact, none of the upcoming space-shooters are going to, so EVE will retain its niche for now. By necessity, Elite will be heavily instanced.
However, if you're playing in the 'all' group, the instancing will be managed by a single server. You don't have to make sure you're on the same server as all your friends to meet up. It remains to be seen how well the instancing system works, especially for people with poor connections. It might be that people in the UK and Australia struggle to meet up, or have choppy gameplay when they do, because the latency will be so high.
We wait and see on that one, with multiplayer combat being released for alpha testing at the end of the month. I know there are people in spread across Europe, US, Australia and even the Middle East, so we should be able to test a few combinations.
That's a very decent offer natte, and very generous of you. 
