After spending a couple of hours with the new beta, I have come to a few conclusions:
One, I have no use for the new ship. It's just another pew-pew ship, and I already have the ones I want.
Two, the engineer changes are terrible. IMO. I like to play with different loadouts on my four ships, and this new system is going to be a real PITA. One good thing is the extra material capacity. You're gonna need it.
And three, I REALLY like what they've done with the planets. Real terrain, to see/run around on!
I was out at Dav's Hope and the differences are day and night. Literally. The lighting is more subdued, and really gives a good impression of what I think it would be like on a airless planet. Elevation changes are more pronounced, edges sharper on the mountains, and the colors look really good.
Lastly, after I bought the new ship, and discovered that I need materials to finish engineering it, I realized that what I was doing is a total waste of time. Nothing I do will carry over to the release, so why spend days or weeks gathering materials for nothing? So I'm basically just going to hang out in the released game and do some bounty hunting or mission running to pass the time until the real release.