Sick and Tired ..............

Barefoot? In my day, we did not even have feet....

Naw, it's called utilizing the time the group would otherwise waste by not spacebarring to do other things (like catch up on news).

If someone wants to waste my time like that, I'll only ask once before I reallocate it to other purposes. I won't allow them to completely waste my time; I'll salvage something out of it.

If they then complain that I'm AFK when the convo option comes up, oh well. They should have thought of that before trying to make me stare at a still picture for five minutes (some of the cutscenes in Manaan and SoR were fairly long).

You're getting such pushback because of the way you are approaching this. In that thick wall of text of your OP, there's more rage, tantrum, entitlement than a thoughtful suggestion.
I get it. You are frustrated and you decided to come here and dump all of it. Your prerogative, but don't be naive, you should expect the responses you are getting.

Next time, if you have a genuine suggestion, do it where we are supposed to do it and do it in calm manner. Just a suggestion

Better get used to it. For the game to survive you will need new players, and of course being new they will want to watch the story.

Ive got a sudden desire to queue GF and watch the TOR movies as well.

I've seen the cutscenes plenty of times so by default I hit spacebar. But if someone gets heavy with the "spacebar is your friend" or crap like that, I start watching them

Story based game is story based. There are tons of games without any story, feel free to play those.

Too bad. Do them alone then.

then i guess you dont know what Bioware is all about.

I am one of those people who will tell you that if someone wants to watch a cut scene then you should let them, they want to enjoy the story and its an integral part of the game. If you are going to queue for matchmaking then you default to house rules, which is if someone wants to enjoy the story let them. The best way to get around that is to find a guild or make a group yourself using general chat and friends that agree with how you want to play and skip everything. Your group, your rules.

All that being said I actually agree with the OP here. For hardmode specifically there should be an option to play the flashpoints skipping the cutscenes, maybe even doing it for all hardmode. Basically split it from a Storymode Flashpoint and a Challenge Mode Flashpoint. Although I think the better option would be going forward Bioware making the Story less invasive in Flashpoints, telling more of the story in what's happening around you and in Dialogue outside of cutscenes without taking control from the character. They have been doing this a bit in Shadow of Revan, they could do it here as well.

Personally I think outside of important scenes primarily for the main story they should try to add in conversations like they had in Dragon Age Inquisition, where it didn't shift to a scene, the camera just focused on the person you were talking to and you were given options to respond, it was a lot easier then being shifted into conversation for every little convo.