I have wondered how they will deal with changing identities. I have to assume that there will be a consistent character identifier (name) that will persist through all deaths. It in some way diminishes the point of character death, but how else will people keep track of friends?
CIG has said they know they can't punish people for dying in game by taking their finances, since a character's wealth can so easily be tied to what the player invested to play. If you put $1k in and die, they can't have your next character get only a fraction of that. They get your entire till.
So last I heard was the penalty for dying will be reflected in the missions you can access. Regardless of where you are on the outlaw status issue, some missions will be open and others not depending upon arcane influences they do not describe. Death however is one of those influences. So if a mission comes up that offers a rare bit of Xian tech, like chillers with twice the power and half the mass and size; and you have died too often, you'll just need to buy it from someone else. You won't be able to earn it. And rest assured CIG can make that a very painful experience. It costs them NOTHING to invent ships components that outperform all others and these will quickly become the grand goals of the game.
They're very serious about death. You should never presume it won't matter. It will. They're serious about the missions too. If you want a truly great ship, you'll need to fly lots of hard missions with your friends.