Faction changes.. err light side to dark side and otherway around will occur, why, because it comes down to easy revenue for BW. It will happen, not for several months, but it will.
You'll be fine, 'open PvP' is not applicable in all zones - in addition, there will be others your level that can provide assistance.
Out of curiosity, does the PvP normalization apply to open world as well?
Wall of text complaining... then.. " I'll probably play anyway but <insert obligated, biased view here" ...
Join the other 1000 threads, pick one and just /sign
Read Dev Tracker.. Stephen says that all pre orders will receive atleast ONE day of early access. Take that for what you will, but why not?, you wouldn't be out anything.
I'm not sure what the source of the scripts data mining is, and take into account multiple toons per accounts, but try:
http://swtorprogress.com/members.php
http://swtorprogress.com/members.php
Take that for what you will. He doesn't describe the 'scripts' source, and you have to realize that some of those numbers are padded with multi characters per account. But for all of you demanding numbers, those are about as good as we're going to get.