I agree. I don't actually expect the queues to get better until the end of january at the earliest.

There are also certain times when grouping won't be what you expect. In your class quests there may be certain phases (behind a green barrier) that state 'only 1 sith inquisitor allowed.' That may be just turning in a quest, or it might be a combat part of the quest you're on. If your buddy in RL and you are the same class, you may run into that issue and need to solo that part. The best way around THAT is to pair a warrior/inquisitor (as an example). As others have stated, you don't NEED to group to do the majority of the leveling aspect of the game. If you want to do the higher level stuff "on time" then you'll need groups. Gearing your companion is VERY important.

With early access I've gotten artiface up to 172 as of yesterday before the server shutdown. I have listed a few "test" items on the GTN, both looted (greens) and crafted (mainly mods/hilts/shields) I think it's too early to expect much of a market. I imagine there are a LOT of people new to MMO's with this game who may not even know about the GTN and player crafting, existing solely on loot and vendor purchases. The ONLY thing that caught me off guard, at first, was seeing orange items on a vendor. I had (mistakingly) thought orange items were ONLY player made items. The biggest hurdle is going to be pricing for the craftables. You get the default listing price that the GTN sets for your item, but that may not be the going rate. You can also make level 7 items, but most level 7 players won't know they can even get to the GTN before their class quest takes them off their starting world. So crafting those, other than for XP and Reverse Engineering, isn't going to be very useful for the first couple weeks or month...until people get the hang of the game.

Shelby area here. I have some toons made up on Helm of Graush.