lvl 30 guardian here. Don't tell me you had a hard time on nar shadaa, Taris and/or Tatooine because if you did, then you're doing it wrong. The only time I had to pop saber ward in PVE was against elite (golden star) mobs. The damage gap between the vigilance and the defense tree becomes significant past lvl 25 or so.
As for tanking, yes it is hard to tank for us. In fact, I hate tanking because of that. However, you're not meant to tank 4 elites and 2 strong mobs. Your team do need to CC a few mobs. Nonetheless, BW will need to address PVE tanking for us. They could, for example, make all of our skills generate extra threat while in soresu form. The soresu form alone doesn't generate enough aggro in my opinion.
I agree with the lack of CCs at low lvl. They should also make hilt strike a baseline ability obtainable between lvl 1 and 10.
Anyway, I like playing a jedi guardian and I will not re-roll.