I agree to a point. Having many people competing to build the best ships is good for competition, so it's not really that bad of a thing. Plus the actual manufacturing of the ships is another whole area people don't really think about I think. The design is fun, and building one good ship may be relatively easy, but building hundreds of them is a whole other challenge. Nesting yourself into a faction, using their resources, and making them proprietary ships is a good idea. I just replied on my intro thread saying the same thing haha.
Also, another point I'd like to mention. Games like space engineers attract people who inherently like to make things. If you want to play the game, you have to build stuff. Starbase is being designed to allow players who have no creative talent or interests to still play the game the intended way by purchasing ships from other players. For now, I think the game has attracted the people it has because of it's awesome building mechanics and destruction, so naturally most people here are going to want to make ships.
Later on I see that population being smaller and the majority of new players will be interested in just playing the game when they see the battles, diplomacy/politics, mining, and so many other things that require a lot of people to showcase.