You can disable the crew limitations also you can have multiple ships. I usually play with one factory(for mining and processing), one starbase (a gigantic storage, waaay bigger than the ones from the game) some smaller ships for defense and quick intervention(often nuke carriers) amd one or two really big and heavily armored Fighters (record enemy destruction was 0,5seconds with a 20 rail guns offensive)
Most things you complain about can be changed in the options or with simple mods, you don’t even need to mine, you can just buy stuff. Also capturing enemy ships is unnecessary for farming, just drag the mine tool over it (or install a mod that lets you harvest them for no resource penalty)
The higher level systems aren’t that hard, you just need to upgrade your ship and larn how to combat with them, every ship plays different. Best way to survive is to outrange the enemy and be fast backwards to keep distance. (rail guns and rockets or lasers or everything)
What matters is default settings. If you expect people to jump into a game and know that 10 hours down the line they made a bad choice, then it’s a bad default. “Just buy stuff” doesn’t work when stations don’t have what you need - it’s fine for a tiny ship, try getting enough uranium for 10 reactors in a reasonable time by buying.
Its a sandbox everything depends on the mods and options you chose at start, thats… Literally what these games are about.
Some gamers are just looking for a simple out-of-the-box experience, and will immediately turn their noses up at the idea of mods.
I am not one of those poor souls, but I do know quite a few of them.