I never got to experience Elite the first time, I played the heck out of Frontier Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters (which is my favorite, despite the weird bugs and the fact that Gametek forced them to release before it was done, so the story just sorta stopped).
Personally, for me, Elite: Dangerous is awesome. Too many people complain about it being empty, but they are of the generation where games feed you everything you need constantly. There is no hand holding in Elite. Do what you want....just remember, they have modeled the whole galaxy as accurately as we currently can (and it gets updated when we (humanity) find new stuff)....so if you stray away from the densely populated areas, running across actual players can be rare.
If there was cross-platform play, I would throw you a few tons of palladium to help you get started, but such is the limitations, I cannot.
Just wait until you finally scrape enough money together for your Cobra MkIII........flying the iconic Elite ship......magical!