I prefer your second idea. It seems even WoW is headed towards server hubs rather than individual servers with their upcoming cross server zones. SWTOR is in a prime position to change the paradigm of isolated servers for the mmo genre.

Our guild decided to reroll on The Fatman. The Republic side on Mandalore the Indomitable is waning, so we decided to move before the new raid came out. This got me thinking about how having individual servers is an old system that needs to disappear. If you want to play with a real life friend you have to level a new one, your legacy goes away if you reroll. If we had one single server for the entire game, we could have phases that separate the chat and players for pve, pvp, rp, rppvp, and even timezones. Since the game already phases players on planets, they could have a cap that phases people. Then allow people to reload into the phase they want so that they can play with whomever they want. Maybe even let people create their own phases like chat channels so you can go do something with your guild or friends without interference. Might even make world bosses even more of an option if you can enter your own phase and not have faction problems. Anyway, anyone have any thoughts on this. I'm just getting tired of this server system. In WoW I had to reroll just to play with friends or throw away money. I liked rift's system of free transfers, but I feel like Swtor could take it one step further. Low population servers hurt the game more than anything else in my opinion.

Well, I'm not talking smuggler only. I just mean a player can get a letter of marque and begin attacking the other faction's ships for money.

Going through the smuggler story, I thought it might be fun to add a Privateer function to end game. Let's say, you get a letter of marque from the senate and then imperial/republic stations and ships show up on your galaxy map and you can raid them for booty. Much like some of the random stations in Mass Effect. Have the encounters be about a half hour engagement that scales with the size of the group. Fill it with chests that contain lots of grays that can can be vendored for a good price. Make a fun alternative to daily quests.

Ilum is clearly not fully implemented. Just look at the turrets that don't do anything. Most likely Bioware will add features to the area as people reach max level. Giving incentives for 2 players on each faction to pvp in a massive zone is silly at best.