If you watch one of the TV spots for the new "Ant Man and the Wasp" trailers, there's a scene where Scot Lang is having trouble with his suit, and he's stuck at the size of a small child. Marvel does a great job with effects to make him feel this size, but even with the proper sense of scale, we can tell that "something ain't right here." In other words, he is obviously not scaled to a logical size.
Ships like the DBX and the iCourier are like this - even when I adjust my mind to "see" that huge DBX cockpit (or the ship in general), it still feels like a smaller ship that got enlarged by Pym Particles. Not all ships are like this. I love my Orca, because it feels "properly" big. I also prefer the cockpits / bridges of ships like the Sidewinder, Adder, Cobra, even the Anaconda, because they feel appropriately-sized.
I admit, it's subjective, but this thread keeps going strong, so you can't just dismiss the multitude of voices that agree that scale feels off, at least in certain ships and in certain stations.
I think a part of that is when Frontier designed the cockpits of ships, they seem to have designed them with a number of goals in mind:
a) looks good in 2D
b) functional in VR
c) sufficient room to accomodate Space Legs
I've got a Vive, and one of my favorite ship cockpits is the DBX, because exploring in it, while in VR, is IMO an incredible experience. I have a spot marked out in my VR space just so that I can move my HOTAS, and have one of the walls be physically where the ship's canopy is. On the longer Supercruise journeys, I like to get up out of my chair and lean against the ship's canopy, and just take in the sights. The command seat, both physical and virtual, is close enough that I reach over and use the joystick to roll the ship to see more of the virtual sky.
Is the DBX cockpit needlessly big? In my opinion, not if you want to meet all
three categories. A cramped cockpit might work in 2D with Space Legs, because if you don't have to worry about VR, you can use avatar animations to explain how your Commander gets into position. A cramped cockpit might also work in 2D and VR, as long as your Commander
never gets out of her chair.
But all three? If you want a
truly immersive environment that also takes advantage of room scale VR, you might want to have enough room for the player to be able to get out of their own chair, and not have their head clip through objects in the cockpit. For that, you need a more spacious cockpit.
So I think Frontier designed the cockpits in such a way that it uses
forced perspective to make the cockpits look "natural" in 2D. But like all optical illusions, not everyone is as susceptible to the effect as others.