So, I should be seeing smash as something which applies a tanking debuff, not something meant to hold threat?

My problem isn't with a challenge. As stated in my post. My problem is, I go in. Do my threat rotation.. and the mobs seem to not really care. Smash does nothing. Tabbing around to try and pick up threat is nothing new to me, I've done it for years. Tabbing around between 2-3 mobs, using my abilities, and losing threat anyway, is new. If this is indicative of end game tanking, then I guess I won't be playing this game past the single player content.

I'm at a loss for how exactly this is supposed to work. I understand how threat works. I've been a tank in wow going on 2 years, and I've completed most hardmode content while it was current. I'm currently speaking from the perspective of a 25 Sith Jug. Now, before I type anything else, this is not a "It's too hard, I want everything handed to me" post. I like difficulty and I enjoy a challenge in my games. But tanking thus far(Sith Juggernaut) has been more or less a constant cluster____. I spend most of my time desperately running around trying to get threat on things and spamming taunt on the highest level mob(champion>elite>silver>everything else). I've blatantly started ignoring anything not at least silver level. I have a grand total of 1 AoE ability which is on a long cooldown(I know I get another later on), has a small area of effect, and doesn't do a lot of damage(or threat). So I try to tab target my way through AoE threat. Charge->>Smash->>Force scream, tab onto new target, ravage, ect. I'm lucky if I can get that far before something behind me pulls threat and I get to start running around hoping to get things back. Worst of all, I have no idea how much threat I have on anything. I don't know if that mob I force screamed is going to go off and eat the bounty hunter. I don't know if the mob I ravaged is going to stick on me until death do us part. I'm not sure what exactly Bioware had planned for when they designed the threat system in this game, but I don't think it's working. Whatever dungeons I manage to complete are by the skin of my teeth and the healer working hard to heal everything.

Any sort of numerical threat meter I'm missing in this game? Or any sort of threat meter at all? It'd be really nice to be able to see how much of a lead I have on threat.

This isn't a QQ post, I did pre-order the game(but even if I don't get in until launch, it's not a huge deal to me), and I've been wondering what sort of pre-order date would have gotten me in by now. When did you pre-order the game?