I don't think this is a feature that should be prioritized as I do not think this will be an issue once the game is out of Early Access. The reason for the starting from scratch now is that each patch introduces changes into the story and mechanics that can outright invalidate the character files you had previously played with. Once the game has gotten settled into a stable form, that won't be an issue until DLC story content becomes a thing and even then that would only impact the beta/early access testers for said DLC content and once it's a stable, finished form, it won't be a problem again.
This is an early access reality, not a final game design.
