Realising I am coming a bit late to the party, as this all started about three weeks ago when the CSM minutes were released, I still want to throw in my two cents on the subject ! Let me recap the situation first.
In August last year a POS revamp was on the table, or at least thought about. This revamp was going a lot further than just fixes to the current system. There used to be this old thread on the forums called Flogging a dead horse which points out exactly what the shortcomings are. The POS code is old though and I assume no one at CCP dares to touch it so they unsurprisingly came up with the idea to redo that segment of the codebase and decided to make it a bit like player housing in other MMOs and design a modular POS revamp.
Apparently someone had been looking into how to handle this and how many time it would take and soon CCP realised they bit off more than they could chew with this idea and deemed it ‘not beneficial for a lot of players’ as we can read in the Minutes from january 2012. This then let to CSM member two step’s campaign to try and change CCP’s plans for this year. He posted a blogpost and started a forum thread which as of now is 132 pages long.
Luckily there was light at the end of the tunnel, CCP Gargant responded in the above mentioned thread stating that the OVERHAIL CANNOT HAPPEN ALL AT ONCE. I didn’t even know people were expecting that to be honest. They came up with the modualr thing themselves AFAIK. Then realised it would be rather complicated, also graphically wise. Which I totally understand, but would anyone care if they’d fix the most important issues first and expand later ? Most important are imho the rights management and the lack thereof for the ships maintenance array.
Especially for Wormhole corporation that pretty much live out of a POS it’s very hard to recruit people. You give them either access or you don’t. Since most people in a wormhole will have a nice array of shiny ships at their disposal, you can see how it is a problem to give access to all of that to a new player who’s strapped for cash ;).
Making POSes better is in the benefit of all players. Most people when they come to Eve would love to have a space station of their own some day, it’s a nice goal to have. Also POSes are the backbone of a lot of activities in Eve. Make that better and you have a much better game. But I assume I am preaching for the choir here, we all know how much better it could be, I am glad CCP realises that as well (albeit with a little nudging in the right direction). I hope it’s not just words but that it will result in a better POS system sooner rather than later !