It was always going to be an issue. Consider:
A sidewinder - a spaceship capable of hyperspace - is only worth a few thousand credits.
Which means a firearm, regardless of how advanced it is, couldn't possible be worth more than a handful of credits. Lore wise, there is no explanation for why small arms might utilize unique materials that economically shift their price to exceed that of a starship. Those same materials would, reasonably, be used in startship construction if that were the case.
At some stage, we have to remember it's a game. Just like spawning from the black - instantly - twenty thousand lightyears away, with a ship fully intact if we can afford it, isn't remotely sensible but necessary to gameplay.
What I don't look forward to is the engineering aspect of on-foot equipment. It sucks enough as it is in space, and by the time us console-peasants get Odyssey, the PC crowd will have undoubtedly identified the 85% or so of ground engineering that is utterly worthless. (You don't honestly expect FDev to get it right, do you?) Which means the 'joy' of exploring engineering - that never materialized in the first place - will still be absent.