There are a couple other reasons to go behind, if you play a scoundrel/operative/shadow/assassin, you have moves that only work from behind an enemy. Some people will still run behind just from habit. Other reasons could involve not wanting to be knocked back in a certain direction, but if going behind you makes a better knockback for you vs them, then they just don't know. Cover is a unique function that, if not experienced by the player first hand, can be a mystery. As for whether it provides bonuses, when you drop into cover on gunslinger/sniper, your Defense stat immediately gets 20% bonus, iirc. That bonus is not direction dependent as far as I know, so should always apply. Ballistic dampeners should be the same as well.

Pretty sure that's Guarded by the Force. Guarded by the Force Instant Cooldown: 90s Spends 50% of current health to grant 99% damage reduction for 5 seconds.

No, but shields only give 5% chance normally. Gear can up that, but Soresu form immediately gives 15% more(20% total) and speccing it out can give atleast 4% more(I'm only 24, and haven't really checked everything in the tree yet).

Actually Zapher, it's the same here, I still have that quest open at 50. My reason for not doing it is simply laziness though, I just haven't bothered to go back to do it. Tattoine wasn't exactly my favorite planet, but I'll probably do it when I go after all my holocrons, which I'm doing soon.

There's a work around. Reset your class quest that has you going to the Atrus. Talk to Darth Whatshercrazyface again, and when you get to your ship, do not touch your holoprojector whatsoever. Go straight to Atrus, and talk to Watcher 2, she should give you cutscene with the same dialog you'd have heard if you used the holo, but it's really supposed to be here in the Atrus. I did the same thing as you and was stuck for a while, but I found a threat stating the above, and now I'm far past it.

/Agree OP.

So far RE doesn't change rank, just changes it from Standard to Prototype to Artifact(haven't tried to see if I can get out of Artifact RE).

Hmm.... so skin color decides if you're evil or not....? I'm not sure I like the Unfortunate Implications of that, if they decide to remove red simply because it felt more sith/evil.

No, there are some rare-schematics (and missions actually) that come back as rewards from other missions. I got a scavenging one from slicing while in beta. It was a far more expensive and longer mission, but it provided vastly superior rewards for completion. In this case it was something I didn't really want (I forget exactly what, either implants or augments... probably augments). However, I imagine some high end items will only be available via high end schematics found in missions like slicing/underworld trading.