I don't know if this is the particular case they are concerned about, but one issue with space games is if everything is given an absolute position, rather than a relative position in a zone, then yes I believe you will lose precision once you get out to a certain number of arbitrary units from the origin.
Regarding Star Citizen as a whole, it does seem to have a very vocal group which will defend against criticism, and indeed, it will be able to use the alpha/beta defense through 2015, 2016, or however long it takes until they presumably declare a version stable.
However, I think a couple of key questions are going to be whether 40+ million dollars were effectively used, and whether the priorities and skills of the development team as a whole are going to produce a polished, cohesive product.
Obviously opinions may eternally differ on whether a game's quality is good, or "$40 million good". I see virtually no way that people will ever agree on that (some will be happy, others will feel the money should have been able to fix problems or do more), so you have a divide off the bat.
Regarding the polish, I understand there are grand goals, and I understand (I do software engineering for a living so this is painfully true) that more money and more people do not necessarily mean anything will be developed better or faster. However, I suppose I keep getting the IMPRESSION that excessive effort or funding or time are being spent in weird areas. Maybe a ship is remodeled, or maybe yet another ship's concept art and model are created since yet another funding milestone occurs. Maybe the weapon, or hanger, or ship also use far more polygons than are necessary, and maybe a vast LOD pass later on will clean this sort of thing up. Then again maybe not so much time needed spent on that, and it might be a better idea to focus on polishing one aspect or module before moving on?
This is where I feel other smaller groups producing playable, reasonably polished products is actually an important point. Focusing resources better might actually be a good idea, while Star Citizen runs the risk of becoming a bloated giant with wavering focus and a variety of problems that may individually be considered unimportant and unaddressed.
The eternal refrain of optimization is "it's an alpha" or "it's a beta" or "optimization happens last" or "it will get patched", changing as time goes on, but some projects may never reach the levels that are expected. As computing power improves, there can also be an eternal refrain of "Well you just need to upgrade" as opposed to "Some big inefficiencies could actually have bene improved".
Yes, time will tell with all of this, and I would love Star Citizen to turn out great. I signed up for the project early on, paying more than any normal retail release, and I accept the risk with that. But ultimately, I think it is important to maintain transparency, continue to track the problems that do exist, and not merely defend for defense's sake.
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