One huge difference between Eve and DU is the universe's endlessness!
Piracy left aside, fights are mostly generated by border defence and territory contests. Border defence and territory contests, just like IRL, come down to acquiring and securing resources.
Since it'll be technically feasible to travel as far as you wish to discover new, unhabited planets (which is utterly impossible in Eve), I'd expect less territorial wars (and probably more piracy?)
Once we get to know how fuel is produced, we may see some very unique gameplay emerge: Ever travelling ships, aiming at uncharted territories... Hey, from what we know so far about the game, some colonies might develop during years without even meeting others!
Yeah, I'm getting carried away. My point is, DU's endless map would theoretically give less reasons for large conflicts than Eve.
I believe many of these players would actually look forward to DU's release. The thrill of a new challenge! The occassional fleet fight to break your nex toy, just to get a new one within hours (or minutes), ain't really exciting. Super blocks are quite stable now (since I last checked at least), there's no major turmoil. Put it plainly, boooooring....