Well the demo is still free and still the most recent build. So no risk really. There's more happening within the universe than ever before and optimizations are making the 'living' universe features and sectors loading play nicer. The changes to weapons, power and shielding might be off putting to someone who has been keeping up version to version but if it's new to you than it won't bother as much refitting a 5 year old ship design. Those of us who have done a dozen refits for every iteration have had our fill tho. I'd almost say give it 2 more years for when the NPCs finally start doing stuff like trying to raid your base for supplies rather than just blockading your planet and nuking everything from low orbit.
There's a roadmap. I'd say pick a feature and wait for it to be included then give it maybe two-three releases before you jump in so the worst problems in that new feature set are ironed out.
Trello
Good luck and Good hunting, starmate.