[Q]

I wish MM the best, but I think he should have made one more patch before this release. The lack of in-game help and some major bugs like the hardware effect on the ship speed (see my "demo problem" topic) make the game difficult to play at the beginning. And the standard game IMHO is not balanced and at least for me as a beginner it is almost impossible to survive the first jobs of the game without cheating. There are to many enemies around that are much stronger than you, even at the "easy" level. This may frustrate most players and make them turn away from the game. Modding the game can correct that, but that may be something not everybody wants to do.
Just one example from the demo: the escort the Beaumont mission. The ship is coded to appear "anywhere" in the system. Therefore the hardest part of the mission is to find the ship and frequently it will be killed before you find it! It is easy to change this in the job file and make the Beaumont appear at the warp point your ships enters!

From the sales point it would be quite disastrous if the reputation of MM with the clients of the same store that will sell SE V would be damaged.

Starfury is a great game in my opinion but it seems unfinished or at least unpolished to me.