From what it seems the shared flashpoints between Empire/Republic are more conventional dungeons like in WoW. Doing this makes it easier to have both sides go through the same content, which is fine in my book.

 

This makes the flashpoints that ARE faction specific all that much more awesome as they can devote larger amounts of time to them.

 

Correct me if I am wrong here, but it seems like all the flashpoints on the main Stations (except BT and Esseles) are shared and lack player interaction. But, all the flashpoints on each of the ships in the respective fleets are very story driven.

foundry is pretty damn awesome and it doesnt have alot of "convo wheel action" but seeing familiar faces and the fight mechanics themselves were a blast.