Yeah, the problem with the X series, in my experience, is that the game doesn't do a good job explaining its own mechanics, nor do any of the supporting materials. It seems like the only way to defeat the learning curve is to either spend a ton of time figuring everything out yourself or to scour wikis and user forums.
One thing that I'm a bit miffed at X
3 for, specifically, is removing the cockpit view. In X
2 each ship had a unique cockpit. I'm a sucker for little immersive touches like that. Apparently there's a mod to restore that, but that's something that should be in the base game, dammit.
As far as capital ships go, Frontier have been adding larger and larger ships into E:D over time. I don't think they'll ever get up to the size of the capital ships in the X universe, but it's something at least. I'm more of a small/medium size ship guy myself (my two main ships in E:D are an Adder, a multipurpose ship, and a Dolphin, a transport vessel), so I'm pretty okay with that. I like being able to get out of my own way fairly quickly.
I'll have to give DarkStar One a shot. Thanks for the recommendation! It doesn't look like it's super complex, but it seems like it'd be a bit more relaxing than stuff like E:D or X.
Also, renaming the thread to something a bit more general!