I have run into that issue with all the elevators at one point. the problem is with your game. If you go through the elevator when someone has the debuff from shield on, the game thinks it never drops. you can wait a bit yourself to go through, or use the elevator again on your own to clear it out. I end up just ignoring it now because it is easy enough even without shield.

You do not need to complete any flash points on normal mode to access their hard modes. However, Boarding Party, Foundry, and Directive 7 all required you to be on the correct step in their story line missions before you can access them. When you get to the point that you need to complete the flash point, you can drop the regular mission for the flash point, but not the story line (IE Call to Arms) and you will then be able to pick up the hard mode version. This does mean you need to complete boarding party and advance the Call to Arms mission to access Foundry. After you have finished the story line missions, you will then have free access to these flash points Of course, it is easy to rush through Boarding Party and Foundry on normal to clear out your Call to Arms mission and not have to worry about that annoyance anymore.

All missions change when someone comes back from completing a mission in that skill. So the easiest thing to do is pick your shortest lvl 1 mission and send someone on it. when they come back, all missions at all levels are changed. I use this all the time for my UWT missions. You get a maximum of 5 missions shown from a pool of about 10 or so, though any mission you are running is not available until the companion returns.

If you have the alloy, just hit the craft button. the crafting window never thinks you have the bop crafting mats, but it still works anyway if you do.

Server status is related to total server pop, of course they show low when most zones are completely empty. staggered access is about not overloading the starting zones.