I live in perpetual fear of someone, somewhere, working out a MMO based on this series where you upgrade your fighter/smuggler/trader/capital ship.
Didn't Star Wars Galaxies have space combat?
I think what happened is the 1st-person space shooter was deemed "played out" eventually and that's why they didn't keep coming out with new X-Wing style games. Chris Roberts was partly responsible for playing the genre out, as his WC series was perceived to have jumped the shark and then he made a film that is on a lot of worst-of-all-time lists.
In addition to this, the novelty of 1st-person space shooters started to wane, since I guess there isn't enough visual stimuli in having a starfield as a background vs., let's say, a complex 1st-person shooter. So they weren't the graphical showcases like the first X-Wing was originally.
Now we're entering an era where PC gaming as a whole is looking rather shaky, and Chris Roberts doing Star Citizen is kind of a hail-mary pass to revitalize this genre.
Maybe with the return to classic SW-era feel under the animated Rebels and the new films we'll wee another round of games in this genre. I'd very much like to do a seamless DS trench run that utilizes today's hardware, maybe even add Occulus Rift for the cockpit.