That's not research, that's looking in the window of a bike store and going "Wow, that bicycle is way too expensive." Research is finding out that the bike in question is one of the most durable bike in the market, which is why it's so expensive.
Look at it this way: Think about the ships in this game as cars. Also during this analogy, whenever I say "credits" that's the equivalent to in-game currency, and whenever I say "bucks" that's the equivalent of real-life currency.
Say you just bought a car when you turn 16 (analogy = buying Star Citizen come release). It's a Honda Civic with a hatchback, but it gets you from point A to point B. It's a decent car and primarily drive it for work, but you do go out on the road on your free time. A friend of yours has a Corvette that his dad bought for him with credits, and it's been waiting in the garage for him to turn 16 so he can drive it. He wants to race you, and of course he's going to win.
So here you are with your Civic hatchback, and your friend's driving around in his awesome Corvette. If you stop right there in this story, of course you're going to go "well that's not fair, that's pay to win." And that's what you're doing right now. You're only getting that far into this discussion and you seem to refuse to go any further. But let's keep going.
The thing is your friend pays more for gas than you because he's only getting a paltry 20 mpg (and less if he's racing), but you're clocking in at a nice efficient 35 mpg. He also has to pay for premium gas and you get to pay for regular. Also your friend is looking to move to a new house and has to rent a U-Haul, but instead you offer to load some of his stuff into your hatchback because you can fit a surprising amount into the back due to the hatchback and folding seats. You friend thanks you and pays you a few bucks for your services (and/or beer and pizza). You also have a mutual friend who has an F-350 who also lends a hand moving your buddy. So here are two people who are helping your friend move because his car doesn't have any trunk space, because it's only good for one thing; racing and cruising.
So right there you can start to see how this is no longer pay to win. The guy with the Origin M50 isn't going to be able to haul any cargo, while the base RSI Aurora can make the shipment to the M50 owner's new house. The friend in this scenario has an MISC Freelancer.
I can keep going on with this. You have people in Mack trucks who do nothing but haul cargo. There are people in the military who drive around in tanks and Humvees all day, but the only way they can do that is by joining the military (or org/guild/clan, whatever) and only in specific areas (hostile/lawless space). You also have construction vehicles like caterpillars who work down at the quarry (the Orion), and just every day luxury cars for people to get to work and back (Origin 300i).
So exactly where is the pay to win here? The corvette can kick my ass in a race because he's got a faster car? But I don't care about racing so I'm not going to do that. The Humvee is going to riddle my car with holes? Well I wasn't planning on driving through a war zone, so I'm safe there. It's not going to be hanging around downtown shooting everyone in sight, because that's when the police are called and he'll be dead on the ground before too long.
And that's the beauty of Star Citizen; it's what you make of it. There is no "pay to win" because what is there to win besides a skirmish? If that's what you're looking for and you don't want to crowdfund right now, then you can always work up to buying and decking out that Gladius, and that's cool. But it's not going to hinder you in any way just because someone started out with a Gladius before you did.