erm. what i read from what you just wrote is that EQ2 did actually *not* anticipate changes in the tech, so it did not build for “future tech”, instead they focused on bringing out yet another mmorpg with yet more effects and details, heavily optimizing it for a tech route which didnt take place, but could not include stuff like texeling or similar?
However, EQ1 was the only viable direct competitor to UO, then WOW came, everybody wanted to play MMORPGs, and then the f2p/p2w wave of mmorpgs really hit that genre. EQ2 had more troubles, than just tech imho. others with way better graphics, like lotr or aoc didnt make it either… sony basicly was revived with the success of planetside… and eve was very long in the backwaters. also, eve does not really have a good 3d engine, but very good GUI interface, awesome networking, and in any bigger companies hands it might have not survived its dark years. the nvidia “people rendering stuff” they licensed created a lot of cool profile pics, but they had their own setbacks with broken or delayed promises, (walk in stations or planets was a very old goal; and the walk in captains quarters, which was basicly yet another engine in the same game, didnt evolve much yet either)
Citizen however builds on top of the cryengine, and cry now even offers a subscription based access to their engine, just to get people modding in it (hinted in the next starship videos, just came out today), so their efforts can go into more modeling and stuff; won’t tell us much if the game is actually fun, or runs at optimal speed. and in terms of tech, it basicly makes citizen dependant on the cryengines success.
Can be a good thing, but can also be a bad thing (Unreal Engine games…). I think “optimization process” for star citizen is much more on concentrating to get out crytec overhead for a spacegame, networking and intelligent modelling, while for the other mentioned games, it much more involved “optimizing the inhouse engine” (wow, eq, eve use all their own 3d engines). So Citizen pretty much depends on how good cryengine runs with its space simulation, but its way more easy to integrate new tech, if your engine is developed independantly (and successful), so they have all this money to spend on huge models.