I think you already know the answer to the question. Star Citizen is no longer about a game it's a high fidelity ship collection simulator.
Yeah, SC, but I was actually curious if there is any way that multitude of ships would make sense in a real game, to improve the gameplay, and the fun. I'm not a gamer myself so I don't have much of a sense of how some of these things work.
Like "addictive gameplay" - I do get that directly because I have "addictive" behavior in other things (some OCD/ADD you know), and space combat, I get that too because I read a lot of military SF and other similar stuff because I like to imagine that kind of thing.
Other aspects I don't get for myself but I get that other people really really would like to do it, like the whole idea of careers for mining or salvaging or whatever, because not only is there the evidence of the forums where SC backers talk about that stuff incessantly but also because of other games like all the different railroad simulators where you basically hang around making train schedules and then executing them.
It's the multitudes of different ship kinds I don't get how that adds to gameplay - unless it is totally and only about collecting the whole set. (Which if that's what it is would be something else I do get, because, well, I have some of that kind of anal retentive behavior too, and also because of the various card games, like Pokemon or whatever, where you collect things and that's a large part of the game.)