I think, and some other ppl think the same thing, carrer mode is not what it is supposed to be. Imagine if carrer mode works like an adventure game... with a quest... a mission... the player is Bob, and fly together with Jeb and Bill... At start you don't need to build the ship, but will later on game... You have a mission to do, a storyline, with dialogs, cutscenes and things like this... And at the endgame you will be abble to build your own ships and fly anywhere like in sandbox. with some bonuses... Imagine this...