All these Local Physic Grids are both handwaving and a shotgun salvo in the foot. Relying on physics everywhere is a naive way of thinking games and can only bring to have to shoehorn many things to achieve the result needed: if physics help solving many problems, they bring ton more too as by definition they bring impredictability, so they put developer out of control of certains things. Basically, you'll never find a good platformer totally relying on physics for key components, because for a platformer to be good, you have to keep control of movements, interactions with the level and enemies and such...
Someone quoted Miyamoto to justify that the more SC is late the more it'll be good. Funny, as we could use [video]http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131997/games_demystified_super_mario_.php[/video]: multiple local gravity from where the player can hop from one to another, both standard and impossible, and you know what? It's faked... Or more precisely it's carefully crafted to make and keep behaviors right, reliable, and on phase with the game design. Devs had complete control of how it's implemented, how it'll behave. Anywhere, any time. Let's not talk about networking: syncing physics behaviors between multiple machines is a very hard thing. That's why I'm very doubtful regarding their "procedural damage" on ships and large scale explosions.
That's why we have a FM meant to be of high physical fidelity but ends totally meh, ships designed like aerodynamic jets though behaving like toys and scattered by out-of-place wiggling thrusters. All of these still at best clunkily half-implemented, at worst wishful thinkings for a pre-alpha where <<use>> is flawed, and in need of a so-called "item 2.0" rework of the core asset interaction system. That's the misshapen monster you get when you think that aiming at the "most advanced technology" will surely make something great even if you don't have a robust design doc, just ideas brainstormed in front of the camera as space fans throw questions and money at the screen.
Now, for the "big evil publishers free development" argument: first I'm neither a big fan of these big publisher, I liked this argument at first, though gaming "industry" didn't wait for Messiah Roberts to show up to save gamers' asp, as the indie scene was already full steam for years when he emerged. But the crowdfunding success sure had some impact on Mr Evil Publisher. But now, as SC is still in development hell, showing both lack of skill to serve something clean and to keep dev and customer relationship open and sane, I think Mr Evil Publisher is grinning like the Cheshire Cat now rubbing his hands witnessing all this mess out of control. CR may have unintentionnally made a good job to restore confidence in Big Publishers when it's about developping an AAA. They couldn't have imagined better plan to try to undermine crowdfunding and indie development.