Am I the ONLY one annoyed...

I'm not even a role-player. I'm only concerned with the basic principles of game design.

And that's the first time I've had my imaginative powers called into question.

That's not quite right. There's a reason why Han, Luke and the rest of the gang had to disguise themselves as Imperial Storm Troopers in order to infiltrate the Death Star. They'd be shot on sight if they were running around in Republic colors.

Same principle SHOULD apply here...

If you were infiltrating the Republic it wouldn't be very smart to hover around on a throne with a gigantic imperial symbol on it.

It's not about RP'ing. It's about wanting narrative cohesion, and a presentable aesthetic presentation.

I wholly agree, but aesthetic presentation went out the door with F2P. Now it's about cheap, quick buck BS to sell. It's only getting started, too.

Jeff Hickman was both joking and selling when talking about the Life Day speeder. It takes a level of cynicism to pull that off that isn't good for the game.

...by the fact that Sith throne rooms are available as cartel market drops on the Republic side? The first time I ran into a trooper hovering around on that thing I was almost ready to call it quits.

Same goes for the dark side glowing eyes being available to someone even if they're lightside aligned (and vice versa).

You know what I think? These items existed before F2P ever came along, and this new development team just repurposed them for the ol' $$$ grab.

I mean, think about it: wouldn't the glowing eyes thing make a lot more sense if it were automatically unlocked once you reached a certain alignment level? It would actually give players a dangling carrot other than gear.

It bothers me some , the Republic and Empire have become practically identical now. You can wear the same gear , have the same class abilities , same vehicles , only thing that seems to set them apart now is npcs which is really sad. There should be class and fractional diversity to make them stand out as unique and special , not a huge melting pot of everything old republic all stewed together. If that's the direction Bioware is taking why even bother having factions and classes..