The thing is, collision damage is already in the game, just it's off by default in the server.cfg. Your concerns are legitimate, but I think that if we see collision damage being "ON" by default in the future that it will be after some of the problems have been sorted out like the problems you describe. Right now, you can bump into something and destroy your ship, on planets, just trying to gently place down your ship will make it disintegrate (as seen on Mushroom fleet's survival stream).
I personally don't have a problem navigating a core off a planet, if I want to go up and away, I do. I tend to hit things more when I'm staying closer to the ground on a planet. Also, I would have to say (watching the mushroom fleet survival stream where they crash-landed on a planet with collision damage on,) they also made a "Pilot Launcher" using a gravity block pointing upwards to send their Astronauts out of the gravity of the planet. They had been crafting on the planet, but I do not recall if they needed to craft that gravity block or had one on hand. I think it will always be important though, that you have some 'emergency supplies' on your person, so in the event you may crash-land on a planet, you wouldn't be stranded.
I think it is important to take into account how much this game can potentially change in a month, or year. I do hope our concerns and other's relating to collision damage will be fixed before collision damage is potentially turned on by default.
