Eve isn't actually Elite, as I understand it. i.e., you don't fly it with a joystick, rather it uses an interface similar to Homeworld. Might be out of date info now...
One of my mates is in the beta and to be perfectly honest nice legs shame about the face...
Looks sweet but the game play absolutley sux needs a major overhaul before it even begins to be playable and they keep comming up with excusses like oh the patch server was down so we couldnt update this month or the lead tech was off sick (what for 3 months?)