In game development you have to manage Flow & Fiero to make sure that your players remain engaged in the game. The SP system is incredibly effective at managing this in a sandbox environment by allowing for gradual escalation of the player's power & the range of roles they can fill.

As an EVE player I'm sure you remember what it felt like to be able to fly your first "awesome" frigate. You probably remember what it felt like each time you scaled up a bit in power & saw the universe cower before you. It's going to be very similar with this. As you play, the gear you unlock doesn't make you a better player but does give you more chances for "wins" and makes you more formidable than you were before, which can be a win all by itself.

DUST won't have that bad a problem though.

MOST of the basic gear has a Militia version you'll be able to use immediately. You don't need to train into SMGs before the game lets you upgrade from the Pistol in the default loadouts.

Assuming you don't pour SP into things immediately, you can start out by finding yourself a niche - find something that, while your baseline stats might prevent you from being GOOD, you're doing slightly better in. Or at least something you ENJOY doing more than the other roles. By the time you've identified your best/most fun role, you SHOULD already have a few SPs to pile onto the relevant skills - and a small stockpile of ISK to pour into the next tier of gear. If you're not careful, you'll run through that new and pretty gear too fast, and have to save up for more - but that's one of the lessons of New Eden: Don't bring it if you can't afford to lose it. If this (relative) noob has read up on New Eden, or got good advice from a friend, they'll only bring their shiny new suits out to play when it's important - or at least profitable, and will stick to the Militia gear for the majority of most battles. By the time you can build up the necessary SP for the next tier of gear in your chosen profession, you'll probably also have saved up the ISK to buy it - exactly as it should be.

In the early stages of the game, upgrades will come to you quickly. It's only as you build up in a particular specialty that it becomes time-consuming. And that's how it SHOULD be, and what most shooters LACK. It's the reason most shooters only hold their fanbase for a year (if that) before everyone move on to the next big thing.

EDIT: I should also mention - console gamer for YEARS now, never played EVE, but I know a little about it.

So newcomers that come in looking for a MMO will have to play in a Matchmaking FPS (High-sec); do you really think this is fine?
This idea that the game has to babysit players into the action is so RPG and so anti FPS.
Holding players' hand in FPS is a mistake...a big one.
Separating players based on their SP is also bad in a FPS MMO; Why would anyone play a FPS MMO just to be stuck with a ranked FPS?

Needing in-game skills & unlocks to compete appropriately is something that won't be appealing to someone that has played FPS for decades.
Would you ask a Tekken veteran to unlock moves for his favourite character or he can't compete appropriately?

Some games like FPS & Fighting Games are based on player's skills and if you "limit" what a skilled player can do you inevitably negate their true essence.
What works for RPG doesn't work for FPS!
What works for EVE doesn't work for Dust 514.

Also are maps in Low/Null-sec perpetual battlefields?

This "instant gratification" you speak of is the bane of every society. Teaching our children patience and working toward a long term goal can help alleviate this undesirable behaviour. There might be quite a few EVE players that don't want this game. There are also quite a few who do. Regardless, I doubt CCP is going to scrap the game. So you might as well accept reality and live with it. I disagree totally with people saying this is not a console game. The writing is NOT "on the wall"! The game hasn't even gone live yet. SERIOUSLY?!? While I agree that the game could benifit from the added functionality that a true computer brings to the table, the PS3 is quite capable of handling what this game requires. Yes there have been thousands of keys handed out. And if you truly think about timezones and daily allowable play time in peoples schedules you would see that actually the total number of players has skyrocketed in the last 2 months (give or take). When I started beta you were lucky to see 100 people on any given server at any given time of day... Now you can regularly find 300-500 on some servers at any given time of the day. It is true that there will be a certiain amount of "player" attrition that this game will go through. Every game does. And quite frankly (no offense to them) those people who drop out for one reason or another; all the more power to them. Those that stay will find themselves a part of the first game of its genre and one that every game developer will be trying to copy. (Look up other upcoming games and see how many are copying CCP's ideas on MMOFPS or cross-game/platrform interlinks. World of Tanks/Planes and Battleships anyone?) Good ol fashioned FPS are cool and all, but they grow stale quickly with the same gameplay over and over. And they are a dime a dozen... How many CoD's are there now? How many Medal of Honor's? Personally I'm willing to give CCP the benifit of the doubt and see where this game is going before I condemn it. Those of you who really think this game is going nowhere, I wish you luck in your search for a better game. P.S. No I'm not a "fanboy"... I'm just far less pessimistic than the rest of you.

A large pool of console players won't be interested.

Another, equally large pool of console players ARE interested. And we're also drawing a portion of the EVE crowd in from PC, along with a few of their friends who wouldn't NORMALLY be interested, but are willing to give it a look and help out their spacer friends from ground level. Having friends in a tie-in game like EVE is for DUST can be enough incentive for some people to stick with something that's a little off their usual preference.

One of my best friends can happily play a game with instant gratification for HOURS on end, but has no patience for games with long-running skill trees and things. I'm planning to suggest that he downloads the game and sets up several characters, then leaves it alone until he's built up a decent collection of SP from the passive gains so he can start off with a bit of an edge over other noobs. I suspect that if he gets to see immediate returns like he will with that SP headstart, he'll probably be able to get into the game easier than he would picking it up day one.

your kidding us right 4x intended.

going to be very brutal here, if that sp gain is not shifted higher, people will not play dust. hell i am very a tuned to the skilling here, but even i am struggling to gain sp . my max ever was 20,000 my reaction " omfg its mah birthdayz ?" or ccp done a booboo. now its barely 8,000sp max. no wonder the camping is rife, its not KB hoe's, its a flawed game mechanic to gain SP on a higher level that others !!

boosters for arum to speed up the SP gain, NO if is just arum it is unfair. those boosters should also be purchased with isk
if need be CCP needs to bring in Learning skills to dust, so that sp gain can be boosted alot.
the skill tree works for eve it is a very long term game, what works in eve sometimes does not work in other games.