The one thing I find missing from TOR I've seen in other MMO's which gives the impression of a living, breathing world that events actaully happen in, and that is either seasonal or random events. I know we've had a couple, like the rakghoul outbreak, but we need more. Some can even be made permanent. For instance:
There could be spice running, where you can either run spice or stop it. It could even be a PvP event and it could even come with specialized space missions. You could even make this a more political event too, like gun-running to resistance fighters/insurgents. An Esh-ka invasion. Have some Esh-ka escape and invade a random world for people to try and repel them.
These were a couple of suggested events off the top of my head. I'm sure many more could be thought up, but the idea would be that there is a galaxy event once a month to make the galaxy seem more real and living, and not completely centered around what your character does.
Also, with the HK-51 mission on the Theoretika (or however it's spelled), Bioware introduced a puzzle-solving mission. There should be more of these.
And let's not forget gaming at casinos or races. Some mini-games would be nice.