This is as good as it's going to get. Do you honestly think the Devs play the game like the rest of us... No, they play in god mode. Elite Dangerous is a framework for a better game. They get the feature working to a bare minimum and then they move on to the next big idea. The game is designed to grind with nothing really to show for it. The missions and storyline are boring and at the end of the day, ask yourself what you really have to show the time wasted in it.
The Azimuth Saga will be a disappointment and nothing will change. They have stated that you will feel the aftermath throughout the galaxy but have any of us felt anything that left a mark?
But the white knights will still champion the game hoping for something that will never come. They will just tell you to go play Star Citizen because you don't fit into the Elite dangerous ideology they have created in their heads. The fact of the matter is Star Citizen listens to their player base. Like everyone else, they also play the game and have achieved more than Elite Dangerous even with a different development methodology. Yes, they are still in Alpha but they have left plenty of room to grow ideas down the road.
Content creators need to waste time grinding ideas out of a game with no content, the same boring gameplay loop, and a story that won't be remembered by anyone. It's a lot easier to do that in Star Citizen because the building blocks for these features are in-game and are updated after player feedback.
There is no roadmap for Elite. There is no communication from frontier about the state of the game and when they do say something they really say nothing.
You can't really compare Elite Dangerous to Star Citizen because Elite Dangerous is actually a game and Star Citizen is a glorified VR chat sim...
The fact that Star Citizen has been in Alpha for as long as Elite Dangerous has been a full game release speaks for Star Citizen's lack of credibility as a valid title.
Elite Dangerous is a game for boring people though - you know - the kind of person who is likely to use their imagination instead of their instant gratification stick, while Star Citizen implies role playing there's very little of it to be done, there is in fact very little of a game at all in Star Citizen, while Elite Dangerous is for those who want to imagine it and actually put themselves in the commander's seat.
I'll be honest and admit that Elite Dangerous is boring but it's only boring if the player is boring and wants the game to entertain them - staunchly loyal Elite Dangerous players will admit that while it may be boring in a superficial way, it's as rewarding as you want it to be, as in, if you can't think of inspiring things to do in Elite then yeah it gets boring, but if, like me, you look for the obscure/mysterious things in Elite and have those be inspiring, then there really is an endless amount of game in Elite Dangerous...
Unfortunately there are only so many hours in the day for a regular working adult and gaming hours are a precious few... so it sucks when games waste your time, games like Star Citizen being some of the worst... of course, gaming itself is quintessentially a waste of time... so what already...
