What really makes such a sim great is having a series of "games inside the game", i.e. gunnery, navigation, all those aspects required a trained officer and crew and are a mini-sim in themselves. Allowing the player to have control of any or all those aspects means anyone will find something for himself on the sim.
One thing I want to point out looking at your videos, I know this is an early testing stage, but the ship reacts too quickly to rudder, telegraph, etc. Those ships had a huge inertia, and you had to anticipate a lot any order. They even had to stop thrust miles away from the destination, so as not to run aground.
