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Mirror classes are fine. Without mirror classes, the game has to constantly balance to prevent players jumping from one faction to another because someone discovered that one of the faction classes does 0.1 more dps under ideal circumstances.

You don't have to mod stuff. Since credits aren't a problem for you, every 5-10 levels (or whenever the game is getting hard for you) go to the auction house and buy green gear for your level. The most important gear to keep updated is your main hand and offhand (and for your companion too). Also choose the green gear mission rewards instead of commendations. You just need stuff that's good enough; you're not trying to optimize your gear.

Tough call. It's a bit difficult to take advantage of 12xp boost if you don't already know how to play. Having a character at 55 gives you perspective (and resources, some credits or crafting) on how to do it again. Rushing through everything, ignoring all the side quests, having no idea what's going on in the planetary quests ... that doesn't seem fun to me. On the other hand, after you've played through all the planet quests and side quests once ... you really don't need to do it again. Once on pub and imp side is plenty. Even with a few changes in dialogue (which can be good!), doing the side quests again can be painful. So, as soon as you get 2 level 55s, you'll wish you had 12xp boost to skip leveling on other characters. But until you get there, the 12xp boost ruins the experience. If I were in your situation, I would look at it as though I'm not ready for 12xp and keep playing the game normally. If I'm having fun with the story at the pace I'm going, there's no reason to stop having fun so that I can skip ahead to the grinding, which I may or may not enjoy.

If you're gearing up so you can run dailies a bit easier, then you don't need much. On alts (that don't run flashpoints, just do crafting / dailies) I use blue 28 armoring/mods/enhancements. I also use purple 28s for the main and offhand, since those give the largest benefit. Then I do the Oricon story missions to get a few more purples. And that's it. That's enough gear for running dailies. It's not enough gear to do the 2+ Heroic on Oricon easily but I can do it. Usually I ask around and group up for that one quest. If you run Makeb dailies, you can simply use the stat boost so you don't need to gear up at all. So if your gear is really bad, just run Makeb to make enough money to craft/buy blue 28s. Keep in mind that when the expansion arrives, all the current gear will be junk. So, if you are earning any basic comms right now, don't spend them. Save them up. Spend them when the new, better gear arrives in the expansion.

SWTOR does not need everyone to pay to make money with f2p. Many people do not agree with this, which means they must not understand how games like League of Legends are making so much money. With f2p, you get lots of people. You make sure they all have fun and stick around. Then some of them spend money on stuff. You do not care if everyone pays. You only care that enough people pay that you make a bunch of money. So, there's no reason to punish people who do not pay. You just give cool stuff to people who pay. League of Legends does this. The game is free. It does not drive away people by punishing them. You can earn all the champions for free. But if you want to customize, you have to pay (which is exactly like SWTOR, a subscription game, that makes people pay to customize character appearance like it was an f2p game). SWTOR charges a sub, but focuses on cash shop, just like an f2p game. It makes subs pay for big content expansions (Makeb was free after a while, but pay up front, just like Revan). It makes other expansions (GSF, GSH) free to everyone, because it wants people to buy things from the cash shop to use with those expansions. SWTOR is basically a f2p game that charges a sub because it can. For the monthly sub, the main value SWTOR provides besides not punishing players is the CC stipend. Otherwise it's very similar to what I've seen from f2p games. The rate of new content is about the same and the focus on the cash shop is the same. Anyway, it's fine that people like paying a sub. However, it's a bit weird that people don't understand that a sub game is not necessarily more profitable than a f2p game or that SWTOR is more profitable now that it's mostly f2p. I also think SWTOR's development over the last year would have been almost identical with or without the sub. The biggest difference would be that it wouldn't waste resources making things suck for f2p and preferred, and would instead make more stuff that people wanted to buy. So, since development is already focused on f2p, why not just go f2p? The main differences would be that more people would play, SWTOR would have a better reputation among f2p games, and SWTOR would make more money. I also agree that some people would quit SWTOR, because they take pride in paying a sub and won't play in an official f2p game ... even though SWTOR already behaves like a f2p game.

No, you're wrong. An individual f2p player does not have to spend any money to make money for SWTOR. f2p make money as a group. Some f2p players pay, others do not. Since they contribute collectively, there is no reason they should have so many restrictions. As a group they make money for SWTOR, so as a group they should be encouraged to play. Let's say I go to a restaurant with a couple friends. I decide to treat my friends to dinner. The waiter says that's ok, but my friends can't get water, can't use the restroom, aren't allowed to have any bread, and will only get 1 fork each, no knives or spoons. This wouldn't make any sense. I would expect everyone to get good service even though I'm paying. And if my friends were treated that badly, they wouldn't stay even if I was paying for them. And if my friends aren't staying, then neither would I. That's what f2p is like. Not everyone pays but collectively the bill is paid, and everyone, both subs and f2p, need to have a good time for the model to work. Players are content. Players who buy stuff, sell stuff, group with people, roleplay, chat, pvp, whatever ... Interacting with players keeps other people playing. With enough people playing, more stuff is purchased. So, a f2p player who pays nothing is still content for other players and can still make money for the game. Restrictions against f2p being content for other players should be removed. f2p should not have credit limits. It prevents them from buying stuff from subs. Why should subs have to sell cash shop items for less than 200k/350k? (Actually, the credit limit is a huge benefit to f2p. Subs have to sell many items for cheap because f2p can't pay more.) Why should subs have long queues for ops because f2p can't fill slots? Why should subs have groups with people who can't equip good gear?

No, it is not the tank's role to pull as soon as everyone is ready. The tank sets the pace. If the tank is too slow for you, then you should be the tank next time. If you have experience as dps and tank then you should know better than to just start the fight to move things along when you're dps. Some tanks are slow. Some aren't very good. Some are great. You can't change how skilled people are by rushing them or telling them they should be better. When people step on other roles or rush ahead because they can handle it, group morale suffers and even the slightest mistake can tear the group apart. Compare that to doing a slower run where the group completes the content. If you're too good of a player to deal with slow tanks, then you should be good enough to have friends who will do the content with you. If not, then work with who you get. Or tank and set the pace.

One correction: you aren't as unappreciated as you think. 2 dps and 1 healer appreciated you. Don't let the bad apple overshadow the people who supported your leadership and completed the content with you. I also agree with ignore early, ignore often. There is an endless supply of rude people. I try to let people know when they've crossed the line and give them a second chance, but if they don't take it, especially if they start yelling at people, I votekick and ignore, just like what you did.

Heroic abilities aren't balanced at all, aren't necessary to play the game, and aren't supposed to make lore sense. They're basically a cheat for people who have played the game a lot and just want to wreck some chump boss. I like them and don't see the problem. I pop heroic moment and blow through whatever abilities I have. It looks cool and kills stuff.

Sadly the SI story is bad, not just for RP but overall. Act 1 is ok, Act 2 is bad, and Act 3 is terrible. As you mention, the Sith Warrior is more viable to RP in a couple different ways. However, Act 1 does explain why your particular SI is so powerful, even though you're a slave. It doesn't fit what you want to do RP, and it does seem like the dialogue choices do not fit an untrained slave growing into their power. As you gather companions, you'll also find out that one companion is basically broken for RP (simply makes up stuff about your character no matter what you do), and another has so little work put into him that his conversations feel like placeholders. You even have one companion who tells you that they're going to do whatever they like, and you just have to let them walk all over you. At times your SI will feel overpowered and at other times so underpowered and weak and easily manipulated that you'll wonder why you're still alive. My SI was an alien, and it was amazing how often (after I became powerful) that people would badmouth aliens and my option would be "ok" instead of "shock them".

I'd collect some of them if they were legacy. It's too boring to collect them over and over. Even then I still wouldn't get the annoying ones.

Getting the HK parts is harder than it used to be, because fewer people are searching for the parts. When it was a gold rush, plenty of people were searching and it was easy to group up. Now it's harder, because a lot of people have HKs and aren't searching. The search radius for the detector could be increased to compensate for the fewer people who are looking for parts. It's still a good idea to ask general chat if anyone is searching and team up with whoever is searching. Nothing stops you from saying that you're searching every few minutes to see if someone just wandered in who wants to join. There's really no reason to not team up for these parts even if you usually like playing alone.

There's not much you can do. I had a similar problem with a couple unlocks that didn't work when I was preferred, and I also couldn't get support. It's a crazy policy that the people who need the support for those unlocks can't get it. It reinforces the idea SWTOR is for subs, and that Bioware doesn't appreciate your business if you give them money when you are preferred. The best you can do is make sure your account is preferred before you try applying any of those unlocks. Start out with one of the cheaper unlocks so that you can decide whether to gamble the others or hold onto them until later, when hopefully Bioware fixes some of the unlock bugs. Unfortunately you won't be able to report back to the forums on whether it worked, so good luck! I'm going to do the same thing. I resubbed for a month to level some characters and pick up a couple unlocks I want for preferred. My idea is that if those unlocks don't work, it's a sign to stop playing SWTOR until rothc. Even if those unlocks aren't officially supported, they have to fix them sooner or later ... right?

Instead of selling commendations directly, a commendation boost would be more similar to the xp and valor boosts already in the game. And what about having a social boost? Some people grinding BT and Esseles would pay for them.