Hopefully this isn't going to be like beating a dead horse, but here goes. I seem to be having a similar issue, maybe even the same. What seems to be happening is that any texture that is environmental (ie the ground, any buildings, ships etc) all seem to be of Standard Quality even though I have the Texture Quality set to "High". This computer is using an AMD 6870 with version 11.11 drivers installed.

A screenshot is here:
http://imgur.com/LreEz

I took another screenshot on a friends computer that was running a gtx 580. His setting were the SAME as mine but the image produced on his screen was worth of my envy. That screenshot is here:
http://imgur.com/gzCwO

I do not understand it myself. I have tried multiple driver releases and they all exhibit the same crap textures. Any thoughts?