But it's not R&D from another product. It's graphical assets from the dino game which have nothing whatever to do with procgen landscapes in Elite, and a simple shooting mechanic which similarly has nothing to do with implementing first person into Elite.Who said there wouldn't be a whole bunch of work to be done? As a proof of concept within the Cobra engine we can see it's possible, they've already done it, and it looks really impressive. Did I suggest it would be easy, or quick? No, but being able to leverage R&D costs with another product is quite clever.
A significant chunk of the trial and error is done, expanding on that base IP is more efficient.
I'm of course not saying they can't or won't do atmospheres or legs, I expect them to. But you're pointing to standard game assets in one game and inventing a correlation to the completely different work required for procgen landscapes and first person gameplay. They aren't helped or proven by what is in JP.