Haha yeah the forums are an absolute cesspit. And yes, there's a significant chance that even if they pull it off and release a finished, polished, functional product, they'll royally fuck up some critical component (MMO economies are easy, right??) or it simply won't be fun. At this point, through the magic of scope creep, they're basically trying to build Arma -- and they're having to learn the hard way a lot of the lessons Bohemia had to learn over the years. (e.g. wow, you mean a default 'press E to use' FPS action button is insufficient when you have nineteen things all next to eachother you can interact with?)
Even in its current janktastic state though, the swarm PvE wave mode stuff has given me some of the most enjoyable dogfighty fun I've had in a very long time. Co-op with friends, it's a great time. Elite: Dangerous is lovely and all (and is really good in VR), but the dogfighting in Star Citizen feels much crazier and more visceral.