I'm pretty sure people would be pleased if it didn't appear to be a minigame aimed at 12 year olds.

Not sure what strikes you as being "aimed at 12 year olds" about it. I didn't see anything particular kid oriented there. Sure, it lacks complexity, but that's because this is an MMORPG, not a space sim. Hell I prefer this to the space crap they shovelled into SWG. At least this doesn't pretend to be X-Wing. Jump To Lightspeed tried to be X-Wing and failed with its generic waves of enemies.

I'm not expecting TIE Fighter here, in fact I'd rather they just devote the resources to making the actual game better because they have their work cut out for them.

Amen to that. They shouldn't have even bothered with this. However, I don't think they spent too much time on it. As they've said it's totally optional and sits outside the mechanics of the regular game.

Also the sales assumption comment is amusing, Starwars Galaxies didn't exactly set the world on fire. The Star Wars license alone is not enough to guarantee success and it's going to take a long term success to see any return on their rumored 120mil+ investment.

It's easy to get box sales these days. WoW has brought so many people into the MMO fold that there are a ton of people willing to try an MMO. That, combined with the BioWare name will ensure that box sales more than cover whatever they've invested into the game and make a tidy sum to boot.

But yes in the long term player retention is key. It remains to be seen if they can do it. I'm skeptical because they have not revealed any content or mechanic that might keep players around beyond the storyline of a character or two.