First incentive could be making the landing process actually interesting and more seamless. And much quicker, for God's sake. I avoid planetary landing and planetary missions like a plague.
1. Planetary landing takes too long. During the time it takes to land in planetary settlement I can make 2 million elsewhere.
2. Landing should be as seamless, as possible. I get the speed reduction, gliding and so on, but from the gameplay point of view there is no reason to make this any different than exiting supercruise next to a station.
3. Ships are behaving in a different way and it's unnecesary. We have flight assist, it should be capable of modifying ship's behaviour and handling so it doesn't behave any different than in space. I can always switch it off if I want to play this way. In most cases I want to perform an easy task: deliver my cargo or message and be on my way. I don't need it to take ages and pose an unnecesary risk to my ship.
4. Currently the planets look like bits of rock with green and blue lines around them. How about adding some atmosphere instead of the lines and make the environment look slightly different?
5. Again, all planetary settlements look more or less the same. How about a settlement that is carved into a mountain side? How about a settlement that is absolutely huge and looks like a real city?
As much as I would like to say the way planetary landing and planets are awesome in Elite, there is something that makes me think Frontier should get back to the drawing board when it comes to this gameplay aspect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5XSiww9ZO4