I've decided this: I don't really care about the Freespace name, but what it currently represents.
Freespace, to me, is the spiritual successor to the X-Wing series which died such a horrible death at the hands of LEC (XWA - The story line and voice acting was quite possibly the best ever made, but the engine, interface and everything else sucked big time - For me XvT was the last...)
In this light, I'd get any space-shooter that had XW's, and now FS', spirit.
If 3000AD made and released FS3, and it rocked, I'd buy it. If it sucks, I won't - It's as simple as that.
But then if 3000AD made a space shooter of their own IP and it rocked, I'd probably buy that too.
The fact is no one has made a decent space-shooter in ages. Freelancer had potential, but it was neither Elite-y or X-Wingy, and I personally thought it could have done better. It was good, but not worth buying.
X^2 I hated viciously - The control system was horrible and it was horrendously buggy, but again it had a lot of potential.
In fact, the best space-shooter that has been released 'recently' (ish) is I've Found Her, the Babylon 5-based sim. The newtonian takes a LOT of getting used to (Actually I hate it - WW2-style physics works much better for space-combat sims!), but the game itself was great - The fact that it is not-for-profit puts many for-profit games to shame!
(I'm secretly hoping FE2 can recreate this success in the future
)
I don't envy 3000AD's task if they do choose to do this 'tho - They have a *LOT* to live up to - When things with the quality of IFH are being made for free, and heck BWO and the FS2:B5 mod for that matter, that really raises the bar.
It will neither be easy nor quick, but they could pull it off...
As the late, great Roy Castle would say, "Dedication's what you need."