Yeah, with 55 hours to go now, my hope is waning somewhat.
I listened to some of the dev's live stream yesterday, and it sounds like this is a guy who has played every space sim out there. He seems to have a good sense for what makes them compelling and what makes them not, and I think the features he's planning speak to that. As to whether the procedurally generated galaxy and missions will actually be fun, I think that's an unknown at this point. In a lot of sandbox space games, it wears out pretty fast. I get the sense that he's aware of that, and trying to make the universe react to the player and change considerably depending on the player's choices. One thing vanilla FL did so well, even if it was fairly static post-campaign, is make the galaxy feel alive with activity, with passing ships, busy trade lanes, etc. The comm chatter was vibrant and relevant, which is seldom the case in these kinds of games.
I'm actually backing Drifter as well. I've seen a lot of backers comment that they're fans of Elite/Privateer/Freelancer, but Drifter is a lot more EV: Nova than any of those games, especially in comparison to Kinetic Void. I think Drifter just managed to sell itself better, which is unfortunate because I think KV is the best chance at having a modern sandbox space sim that isn't Evochron: Mercenary, etc. No offense to anyone who likes these games; I just don't have the patience for vertical learning curves anymore, especially not after FL demonstrated that they're entirely unnecessary.