From Oak Hill WV, but now in NC. I play on Sith Wyrm

If they say something like Hutt or anything other than Galactic Trade Network it is a good bet that they are neutral trade networks and not faction specific.

Sounds to me like you skipped most everything except your class quests. That will put you out of level range.

Under your preferences at the bottom there is a link for keybinds. Make sure your mouse isn't bound to something you don't want it to be. I don't have this problem on my characters.

I had the same thing happen when I hit Dark II but it said "Ruthless". Probably connected to that.

Yup called Enable Companion Comparitive Tooltip or something similar.

I am playing on a Dell Studio 550 8GB RAM Intel Quad 2.5 Ghz EVGA Nvidia 560 Ti I run on high with no lag whatsoever outside of the odd server lag. The tower cost me about $500 from Dell last year.