The answer is PvP, right? What did I win?

It's true, sadly a lot of players believe the objective guarding is always someone else's responsibility, if they blindly run to mid then someone else will break off and go and intercept/defend. Ironically these are the ones that moan when you lose it.

There's a real lack of responsibility from a lot of players these days. The amount of times I see people leave the objectives unguarded is becoming more and more common, most notably on Hypergate. I'm happy to put in a defensive shift in most games, and it's not always the sexiest job but i'd never abandon an objective if I was the only one there. I suppose there are few people who actually enjoy guarding, most would rather be in the 'fight', doing damage or healing, that's the sexy stuff.

I absolutely LOVE Engineering, have been spec'd into it ever since I had enough points for Interrogation Probe, and now at 45 with enough for Plasma Probe things are even better I haven't thought too much about stat priority yet, but as the levels go on I certainly will. I presume a nice amount of crit and surge to take advantage of the AOE multiplier is handy, but should I be looking for a fair amount of accuracy and power too? Would appreciate some guidance.

Then I fail to see your point. The guy doing Flashpoints with his 3 mates shouldn't have access to the same gear as people who run Ops? I've never understood the attitude.

The carrot is still there, no-one has suggested taking drops out of ops. But why should dedicated crafters/explorers/money-makers not have access to equally good reward?

Why not? If people have the patience to make it and the money to buy it. Locking the best gear to operation level seems backwards to me, allow people to specialise and excel in other areas and you'd have a happier player base.

I've force pushed someone over the line on Huttball before when trying to push them off

That's not why I play it.

You da man.

I don't think this is true, I only ever used Zenith and Nadia on my Kinetic Shadow. I'm a Gunnery spec Commando at the moment and i've very rarely needed to look after 4X.

I've used Zenith since I got him, with a beefed up sniper rifle he does obscene amounts of damage, and as you say, brings the AOE in assault mode too.

I've found Zenith very handy as a KC Shadow. In most cases I can survive well enough for Zenith to burn them down one by one, or if you're fighting tough groups of melee, stick him on assault mode and use his AOE skills. I have used Cedrax on a few occasions where I opted for safety over speed but I wouldn't rule out the advantage of a companion who can kill fast.

It's posts like this that give MMO communities a bad reputation.

Use it all you want mate, throwing rocks is cool. While I respect some people's ability to come up with these faultless, force efficient rotations, it's hardly required early on. Play and enjoy.