Personally, I will probably just wait until the PA pricing hits beta stage and get it if I have the money, since I missed the original kickstarter. The Early access on Steam seem aimed to those that missed, and I'm ok with that.

On the other hand, I would rather see a game just use Steam to run the alphas and betas in the background and not sell early access if kickstarter-appropriate price levels will just turn people away who might have paid the release price.

I think a lot of people in that discussion are missing that an alpha or beta can also just be a part of the game that needs testing, and not the whole thing, as with Dragon Commander. Maybe that could be used to accommodate a lower early price than the kickstarter, while allowing kickstarter backers access to more.