I thought I'd wait a few days to see if the two extremes in opinion had moved closer together - it would seem not.
I backed Elite: Dangerous on Day 1, the promise of an offline mode was right there on day 1, on the Kickstarter page.
My reasons for wanting/needing an Offline mode:
1) Despite what some people think many people don't always have Internet access (I work on a military base - access to the Internet is not authorised for apps like ED - I work inside what is basically a giant Faraday cage so no mobile signal - so I can't tether a phone even if I had the mobile contract that would allow that)
2) My home life is complicated (mainly for health related reasons) - game playing when it happens is in quick bursts and is often interrupted - you can't pause a persistent universe.
3) I often work away (some places have Internet, some don't) - so I could go weeks without being able to fire up ED - in that time the game I left behind could have changed dramatically (and given past experiences of other games - always for the worse!)
4) If Frontier go bust - we ALL lose the game - not sure why this doesn't bother everybody - if there was an offline version we'd still have that.
5) No offline means that we'll inevitably be dragged into a micro-purchasing model - "Buy stuff or we won't keep the servers running" - "Buy stuff or you'll find you're out-gunned, out-manoeuvred, out-played, etc..."
Finally, for those who are happy with the persistent online - good for you - but as I said - I pitched in on Day 1 of the KS for a game I now won't get - I also - over the rest of the time persuaded six of my students to jump on board too - they were military students - they also work in places where there's no Internet connection - so I feel like I tricked them too.
The one small saving grace for me is that I turned down the chance to buy a good gaming laptop at a bargain price about six months ago when I still had some cash - it turns out that this was a good thing to have done since, with no offline mode, it will/would never be used for playing ED...