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I still don't understand what all the fuss is about. Admittedly a few backed a primarily online game relying on the offline mode do have something of a point but they still backed an online game.

The reasoning for the withdrawal is based on how the game has evolved as whilst it started out as a remake it has evolved far beyond that. Not only are the commodity prices, ship and module availability dictated by the server the entire universe is which wasn't the original plan. Frontier can curate the universe and trigger events, inject custom missions and that sort of thing. They could provide an offline version by bodging in some code to control the markets and provide some basic mission templates but it would be a very bland and empty experience which would be totally sub-par compared to the online version. Reviewers would pan the offline version tarnishing the reputation of the online version. The announcement wasn't handled well and the timing was simply down to the fact they kept looking at ways of producing a decent offline mode for as long as they possibly could.

The solo mode is there for those that don't want multiplayer so you get the curated universe and all of the ongoing events but you will never see another human player and unless you add people to your friends list you will never hear from another player either.

The chief reason many threw their toys out of their prams was that if Frontier even shut the server down you couldn't play anymore. £40 for a game you can play for free for (hopefully) many years didn't enter into their thinking. It isn't like other games ever shut down. Frontier also said (before they had even released the game) that if they ever shut the servers down they would release an archive of the server back-end for users to roll their own.

> Love the graphics in Elite Dangerous, but when they began promising in-game advantages for real cash (second ship etc) I realised that they'd lost the essence of what I'd wanted and walked away.

This is absolutely not the case. You cannot buy anything but cosmetics for real money. I think you are confusing the kickstarter backer rewards as backing to a certain level got you an improved starter ship. If you bought in during beta you got the mercenary edition and a few digital bits thrown in and if you could upgrade a pre-order to the merc pack.