Pets and Mounts could be an additional combat companion for role playing.
SWTOR gives the player a Companion of their choice. While we're in story line and class PVE missions - Why aren't these amazing, useless and expensive Mounts and Pets able to assist us in combat? Even for PVP they would be useful for a few seconds of combat.
The pets literally don't do anything other than follow you and look like a display in your stronghold. Who would go out of their way to want to buy these little critters? Why not give them a fun buff to the player or at least let them attack the enemy for a small portion of damage - the enemy can even incapacitate the cool pet. It would be fun to have my bounty hunter, his companion AND a droid attacking the target. Not even for a combat advantage, but for a cool experience with these worthless pets.
The Mounts are nothing but a ride. How in the heck is a Rancor Mount not able to attack NPC's? Again, this does not need to be a powerful attack ability, just for role playing excitement. Typically, when you're attacked - you have to dismount etc. It would also be really cool if the Dev's considered making the mounts like they were for a similar game of Star Wars Galaxies (SWG); you can dismount the Rancor and it'll follow you or stay put. This feature would give mounts a more realistic feel that they are out of the mission with the player. Instead we must pack them away in our magical Pokemon ball etc. Why buy a Rancor for 28 Million Credits when it's no different than my speeder in ANYTHING but skin? When the mount is attacked, treat it's health as if it is still a mount - you get knocked off when the mount is 'disabled.'
It would be even a neat feature if the Companion, the Pet AND the Rancor mount were able to fight with you combat, for a minor damage boost - simply to put more of a role playing experience into the game. The value of collecting these useless pets and mounts would bring the market and game play up significantly.
Hope the Dev's consider this advice to make this game more enjoyable to the monthly subscribers, like myself, and it'll give a boost to the cartel market, the global market and the SWTOR game in general. Thanks.