ETA on Advanced Class change?

Yes. They're expected to buy their own **** just as if they'd have leveled up that character, that's exactly what we all would expect if you changed your AC.

Last night I ran ToS and Rav on my Merc for the 1st time, he was a 12xXP toon that's never equipped any relics, no implants, no ear piece...know what I did before we ran the Ops? I bought decent stuff off the GTN...not the best stuff, not 198s, not even 192s, nothing purple, just blue stuff. That's exactly what I expect someone else to do.

What do you expect them to do exactly?

I agree TUXs, if people wish to switch classes so much, they should be required to gear up on their own when they do.

They are exactly the same sort of thing when talking about a Tank <-> DPS spec change. If you've levelled as a Powertech Pyro (DPS) spec and decide to switch over to Shield (Tank) spec for endgame without taking the effort to change your armour, offhand, implants, earpiece and relics you are going to have all manner of problems and rapidly find yourself on ignore lists.
The cost of pulling a mod out (especially best in slot) is usually a fraction of the initial purchase price.
The cartel market keeps it self afloat on the sale of vanity items, orange gear with no mods in them. Any player that wants a new look and have BiS with full augments already has an additional price to pay.
I watched the Dev stream, and heard them mention it was being run on a Dev shard and could expect to see quirky things because its a development stage platform not a live server. The code for an AC swap is not fully functional, undergone iteration at any level, or even through a Q&A pass. It's rough raw commands for the Devs to force a change without any of the final polish a live feature should have.
This is the only remaining point I agree with. The time spent developing an AC swap feature could be better spent elsewhere. Where is a matter of personal preference.
However, for an 'average' playthrough you are still talking about 80-100 hours to reach endgame.
I'd far rather have a happy player with 8 characters (one of each class) they play regularly, flipping between ACs when they want a change on a specific character.

They used to have this when Field Respecialisation was introduced, obviously with regards to swapping spec from tank to dps or vice versa in WZs like Voidstar. It was disabled.

The only thing you need to do to make this a non-issue is to tie the functionality of an AC swap back to the original NPCs that could offer respecs. There is one on fleet and one on the home world of each faction.

The argument the guy offered is typical of the anti-AC swap crowd. They spin totally nonsensical hypothetical scenarios like that guy's "Players will be switching ACs (and gear, presumably) mid-WZ with the click of a button."

I know. I just can't seem to help myself when it comes to this thread

Fortuitous as it is, I ran my sixteenth character through Yavin 4 today (the weekly for the 192 legacy bound companion gear). I now have one of each AC sat at 60 on Yavin 4 twiddling their thumbs

As I don't really like end game content I guess it's back to a new alt and finish off some experiments like my Bountyhunter brawler (not selecting an advanced class and primarily using the legacy unlocked valour punching attacks) or my second sorcerer but this time without a companion.

The respec NPCs on the fleet say something about unlearning what you have learned to reach greatness. Advanced classes are just another set of learned skills that should be unlearnable. If you're afraid of it happening too often, make it expensive and put a 6-month cooldown on it. But it should still be an option.

They'll never give AC change.

Hell I'm still waiting on the dual spec they promised way back for 1.2
Should be any day now right...

/cricket chirping

/tumbleweed rolling

I'd say it's unlikely at this stage, but 'never' is a bit harsh

The implementation of 'Field Respecialisation' was SWTOR's dual spec. It lacks a little finesse, actually expecting the player to make the effort to track 3-4 abilities and replace them on the quickbars, set the active stance (for those Specs that have them) and equip the right equipment. If you respec a lot this becomes second nature (you don't even need to drag the majority of the equipment, just right click it in your inventory screen, the only issue is with offhand weapons, second implant and second relic) and you'll likely set up your quickbar to make the Spec abilities easy to swap over.

When it was introduced it was far more functional than dual spec, allowing you to have as many options as you liked, yes a little bit of memory work was required but again if you had a couple of strong builds it was easy to assign the points. In fact respeccing between tank and DPS so often (dailies/FPs) became second nature and highlighted that very little was lost with the introduction of the fixed path progression seen in the Discipline system, you tended to max out the desired tree and then scatter a few points in the other two.

Now any one can reset their utilities, if you have Field Respec you can reset your Spec (role) out in the field... surprisingly enough

Allowing an AC swap isn't that greater leap in scope from the existing spec swap.

Maybe even limit availability to level <30. By then, a player should have a good feel about whether they like the AC they've picked. If they've decided they want to change before they hit 30, then they should be able to do so; utilize an AC swap feature.