That's just it though, you don't NEED to pay more than the lowest price to get the game and earn everything in-game. As I've said to many people, there are those who are cash rich/time poor who just want to own a bigger ship, or in some cases pretty much all of them.
However having a more expensive ship doesn't mean you'll be "best". This is a skill based shooter, gear will only get you so far, the rest will come down to your personal skill and those of your friends if you're in a multi-crew ship or squadron. If in doubt, don't back it and wait for release. You'll only miss out on any backer rewards between now and release anyway and those are few and far between.
There are plenty of people who think some of us are mad for putting money into this, I think people who have 8 guitars are all nutters when they can only play one at a time but hey it's their decision! Only bringing that up as a mate was over last night and had a play at Star Citizen on my account, called me mad, wished he owned a PC then started talking about his guitar collection.
Regarding stealing ships - there is going to be locks etc on when the game is released but right now in the test universe it's a free for all, and pretty hilarious. Many people spawn ships for others to try though, personally I prefer to sneak on board and steal the ship whilst the owner is EVAing nearby. In the final game though there will be ship insurance, law enforcement, bounty hunting, piracy etc so whilst there will be people stealing/blowing up your ship it's more based on consequence/reward than anything else, it's not a game that'll hold your hand though and yes your ship could be stolen, locking it will likely only slow them down - much like real life.
If you want to see the sort of nonsense you can get up here is the very first attempt I and one of my friends from OCUK had at multi-crew, this was a few patches ago before a lot of stability work by devs :
He He.
