Don't see the need for much personality in the NPC's as it's an MMO but perhaps Dave was pointing towards an all encompassing galaxy story that must be interesting to keep the player playing...

Would be nice to have "events" happen that can change the course of the game, would be awesome say for different factions to see each other differently and perhaps the owner of the game i.e Teamer could instigate wars by say paying more for one faction to attack another kind of like a bounty, one player would therefore feel compeled to attack the other while the other player sees it as random unprevoked attackes from some evil faction.

In elite the only real AI was the pirates and police I recall (hopefully correctly) I like the idea of having some areas of a game safer than other but obviously the real money is far away, mining etc...

MOO had good interaction between species and the longer you conversed with one the better your alliance, allowing for better trade and exchange of technology but another race could undermine this allience using sabotage.

Teamer do you plane to have any actual flying? I know you said no 3D and perhaps doing something like StarControl would be a bit much but I assume something like that of Master of Orion could be done fairly simply? Ever played it?