This is all but a necessary step. If you work out the conventional rocket equations assuming a perfect translation of mass into momentum, to get to appreciable fractions of lightspeed still requires absurd amounts of propellants. At the moment we haven't even got a faint idea as to how we might obtain such total conversion. That's why there's so much interest in designs where you don't carry your fuel with you, like laser-driven solar sails and such.
I assume travelling near speed of light with conventional physics is impossible, since the ship's mass would crush itself as it increased infinitely.
Warp drives, on the other hand, seem to work by moving space-time, not the ship. So in theory the ship is left intact, without the people inside feeling any acceleration whatsoever.
I'm fairly certain that wouldn't be an issue. Relativity means that any (let's say non-accelerating, to keep us within the context of special relativity) reference frame is just as good as another. In the spacecraft's reference frame, it's chilling out, and a bunch of stars off a ways are moving really fast, but they don't really affect it.
It is an interesting problem though; I'm not really sure why it can't crush itself...