it's definitely something we're planning to do, but had some information about why they aren't in quite yet

"Aren't in quite yet"???? Its been over a half a year, and no improvement has been made... that's using the term 'quite yet' extremely loose!

Story Mode Explosive Conflict and Terror from Beyond are balanced for players in Columi gear, but we currently have no way to enforce or communicate the recommended power level. This could cause frustration for players who are undergeared, and would bog down the process of getting into the content, which is contrary to the purpose of the tool.

Here is my point. You say it causes frustration to have group finder pair you up with people who don't have prerequisites, but how frustrating is that compared to having to spam general to find players of a specific roll for specific operations and certain difficulties, then going to the operation and getting inside to find out there are undergeared people or people that are locked out, so you boot them reload back to the fleet and spam some more hoping to find someone who fits perfectly to previously mention... also how do you explain Lost Island??? But I'll get to that...

So to sum it up your saying the primary "purpose of the tool" is to not cause "frustration for players who are undergeared"

So group finder isnt used to prevent frustration from players having to spam general chat to find

1) Players of a specific role

2) Players geared for the difficulty (to state these are both negatives eitherway unless gf is improved)

3) Players that even want to play that specific operation

4) Players that even want to play it on that difficulty

5) And last but not least, Players that are not locked out of the operation

I'd say that's exactly what group finder should be doing... As it stands it is the very definition of "bogging down the process of getting into the content".

Introducing either Op into the Group Finder would also mean rotating out Eternity Vault and Karagga's Palace

I completely don't understand this concept. Why are there only 2 slots for ops? How hard is it to add more slots, or different tiers like you did for Lost Island. Group Finder didn't take 6 months to create, so why has 6 months passed without improvement??? To que for Lost Island you don't have prerequisites, but that didn't stop you from giving 1 FLASHPOINT ITS VERY OWN SECTION ON GROUP FINDER. This isn't a complicating thing... clearly, as you have already done it!!!! When will improvements be made???

Personally, OP, I'm on the fence about whether or not I agree with you. Would it be faster and less irritating if EC and TfB, or even higher difficulties of any of the ops, were added to their own Group Finder tiers so we could just queue up for them instead of LFGing like we have to now? Yes--IF (and this is a big if) people were actually using the Group Finder as intended.

From my perspective, Group Finder was implemented to cut down on the time required to get a group together for flashpoints and ops by letting people queue up for them and be auto-matched with others trying to do the same content, with little bonus rewards thrown in for people who queued for entire tiers of content rather than just the one thing they were really wanting to do. Unfortunately, those rewards have become the driving force now; on my server, at least, players will grab a full ops group ahead of time (either through friends/guildmates or old-school LFGing) and then queue the whole group up at once, defeating the Group Finder's purpose while still netting themselves the rewards for "queuing up" and working with "random people" to get through the raid. From what I've seen, flashpoints aren't much better; people still LFG spam to get groups together for them instead of just queuing, likely because it really doesn't seem like anybody uses the queue "as intended" anymore. It's especially bad if you're a dedicated DPS like myself and my wife (pretty much the only role either of us have the mentality to play, sadly); a month or so ago, we sat in queue for the SM ops for SEVEN HOURS (meal breaks and such factored out) before just giving up because we hadn't gotten a single pop (we would've given up sooner, but I was sick that day, had nothing else to do, and didn't feel like breaking out any alts at the time). Yes, I realize that DPS are a dime a dozen, but seven hours is a bit ridiculous.

So what it boils down to is: would it be better to be able to queue up for every flashpoint/op in the game at every difficulty level and end up potentially spending half your waking hours of the day staring at a little blinking light in the corner of your screen, or would it be better to put in a little extra effort and LFG a group together like we have to now? Truthfully, there are times when I think either answer is correct. You have the potential to deal with inexperienced, undergeared players in both situations, and both have the potential to leave you sitting bored for hours on end while waiting for favorable results. The GF scenario's only major benefits in this situation are sidestepping the lockout problem and getting the extra rewards, but since most people who already have access to enough friends/guildmates to do the content anyway will just queue a full group for the sake of getting the extra shinies on top of what they get now, very little would really change for those of us who don't have ready access to a full raid group at the drop of a hat under the as-is system.

they could make it a tier 2 operation setting.

that way, people "SHOULD" know not to queue up unless they have gear

kinda like how lost island is a t2 hm, and if people show up in tionese, they are kicked.

This topic isn't about should they... its the fact that they already confirmed they would, but not at that time due to reasons I just undermined. I'm wondering how much progress they have made on this in 6 months (if any [probably none])... And when can we expect something? I'm confused on how within the first 6 months group finder was implemented and over the next 7 months it hasn't been improved as they stated they would

Also the point that was made that there is flaws in the rewards system really proves that their are additional reasons why GF needs to be updated.