I'm not pre-ordering because I'm buying a game, but because I'm buying a world, for better or worse!

Let's just get this out there, as a game, Sea of Thieves is a little empty right now. Yes, including everything we know is coming at release. There isn't a lot of change to the quests as you progress, they just get longer. Merchant quests are basically gold-digger quests, except you have to guess at which island to go to. I don't know how the souls voyages are going to be, but it could get painful if combat control doesn't become more fluid. I'm just not sure if I'm going to be kept entertained long enough to grind out 50 rep with every faction (I'm assuming this is the in game cap based on cosmetic requirements).

That said!!...
I've enjoyed everything I've done so far despite the need for improvements, and I see such a huge potential for things that can be added to the game and it sounds like Rare plans to keep putting new things into the game. What I see in Sea of Thieves is a world that my friends and I can potentially get lost in and just have fun. I believe there are so many ways that even the current content can be improved, and there are all kinds of systems and features that can be added to the world as time goes on.

Gold-digger quests for example instead of just adding extra steps, could occasionally throw in some really complex riddles. Maps could have less features making it harder to find chests but with bigger rewards. Instead of multiple chests, maybe you have to sail around to several islands accumulating clues, till you find a really valuable chest at the end.

As you complete merchant quests and get more rep with the faction, maybe when you use the map notes could appear on the things you've found and where so that as time goes on it's easier to find the islands with the right types of animals. Maybe sometimes you can get a contract to deliver a particularly rare animal type and you're given maps and clues similar to the gold diggers, and it might require some sort of bait to draw it out when you find the right location.

I'm just spit-balling on these, but the voyages really have a lot of room for growth and to add variety. If I'm going to grind out 50-100 voyages per faction, there absolutely needs to be some variety to what I'm doing.

Those are just possible improvements to the current quests we've encountered. There are so many games and in world events that could be added as well. Games between pirates supporting actual gambling of their gold would be a fun addition, even if maybe it's limited to the taverns. Those galleons are hard enough to manage properly with 4 people paying attention.

I'm not the most creative in the game design department so I don't know off the top of my head what all these new/better systems would look like (some things sound great but might be terrible in practice), but I see a platform that has been built upon which a whole world can evolve.

I'm not suggesting that everyone should feel this way, it's just how I'm approaching it, and frankly it's the reason I'm willing to buy it. If the game were only ever going to be exactly what we got on release, there is no way I'd shell out $60 bucks for it. So yeah, I'm taking a gamble that Rare is going to make the world grow and fast enough to keep their servers populated. If I get burned I get burned, but I figure worse comes to worst, I'll get enough time out of this game that it'll still be a better dollar/hour played return than many other games I've gotten.