I think a lot of you are missing the point.
The game only requires you to buy it once (and right now it's only $30...a HECK of a lot cheaper than any other game of it's quality) and that's it. You have the option to purchase a bunch of other ships and things right off the bat, but you don't have to. And it DOESN'T GUARANTEE YOU'LL WIN either. One of the things I've seen reinforced over and over is that Star Citizen WON'T be a pay-to-win game.
Basically you'll be able to take the weakest ship in the game and trash the best ship in the game if you're an excellent pilot and the other guy's a complete newb. And you can buy in-game every single thing that people are spending exorbitant prices on IRL right now. I think they're doing it for one of three reasons: 1. They want to be able to say "I'm that guy that spent $15,000 dollars on that game". 2. They want to support the game. 3. They want to have the biggest and best as soon as the game is released.
Some people will say "that's not fair! He spent money and bought a Scythe (or Hornet, or what have you), so how can I compete with my little Aurora?" The same way you compete IRL. You take your Honda CRX, you hop it up, and you go beat the snot out of somebody with a Dodge Viper (true story actually...it was my brother's car with a good driver behind it.)
I think what's gonna happen is there's gonna be a lot of awful pilots with nice ships, that lose those nice ships really quickly because they can't fly them. And THAT'S where insurance comes in. Firstly, insurance is payed with in-game credits, NOT IRL dollars. Secondly, just like in real life where you have insurance on your car, in-game insurance is just for people to be able to keep flying even if they're a terrible pilot and get shot down a lot.
TL;DR: Basically it's been stressed many times that Star Citizen won't be Pay-To-Win; that piloting skill will matter much more than quality of ship, and the insurance is mainly for bad pilots who get killed a lot. Also everything that people are purchasing with real life dollars now will be available to buy with in-game credits, it'll just take longer to earn them.
Also one final thing...When you buy the game you're buying the game. They're getting into the whole immersion thing, so they market it like you're buying a ship, but really you're buying the game where you get a starter ship. Then you can upgrade that ship and buy new ones eventually just like every single other space sim out there. The only difference is now you have the option to skip hours of gameplay and purchase those other ships with real money where in previous games that wasn't possible.
Post edited June 29, 2013 by A_Future_Pilot