That is different precisely because other MMOs follow a themepark model where the very linearity of it means that everything, if done right, take the player by the hand and guides him through all the leveling up to the high end game.
Eve is different on that, and doesn't offer any clear substitute for it. I made it in 2006 in the game through friends, started playing with them, and that's what kept me going. I would have started alone, I would have dropped. And lol, I didn't drop, and played like 7 years to their game just because friends were that precise substitute they do not have in their game. The kickstarting thing that makes you stay and find stuff to do and enjoy the game.
I don't even want to think on how many potential players that could play more than 5 years to their game and prove to be very loyal consumers they lose that way.
On the subject of needing years of SP before seeing these things...
... yeah, flat out wrong. Give me a newbie, put him through the tutorial quests (all of them), maybe the SSoE epic arc just to get a little positive standings to start with and time to train some bare essentials and after that it'll take me 24 hours max to get him in a fleet to have a little pewpew. A Maulus maybe, or a cheap tackler. He won't be taking on titans his first time around, but he'll get to be in a fleet with TS3, laughter, a little welp here and a kill there and just maybe he'll even get to be the hero that "was there".
All you need to be part of Eve in high, low or null is a bit of guts. You won't solo Ava's wolf, dominate a market hub or FC a nullsec blob but you'll be there. The trick is finding someone to play with, and never trusting them an inch. It'll be cutthroat and it'll be fun.
Most of the people put in that situation I knew literally left just after because the experience was too brutal. Not everyone is able to handle brutal death like that, especially when the first time it happens is pretty much intense on the spectrum.
The fallacy is to assume that because you are part of a minority and it works for you will necessarily works for anyone. I have actually met a lot of more casual players (or carebears as they are called) that didn't follow that precise mindset and still were perfectly fine audience for the game. But yeah, it didn't work very well to try to force squares into triangle holes.