I read all the dev stuff going back before 1.0 launch. As i understand it, the concept was a player built world. Those vast empty zones were meant to be filled with player created structures, kinda like the current housing, but on a more full scale level. In that sense, housing and the airship stuff is really the main design carry over from 1.0 except it is now secondary. The reason the core concepts were not ready at launch was because the game was forced out before it was ready. I still credit tanaka for his vision and ambition though. Woulda been a hell of a game.