I apologize for speaking for the OP, but I don't think he's talking just about raids and other such content.
I understand that WoW didn't have all these in release, but there's things like achievements, pets, and mounts to collect. There's factions to gain rep with, and rare recipes to find.
The lack of gold sinks in SWTOR might contribute to this. There's not really any point of crafting for money since there's nothing to spend it on, and there isn't really anything great from crafting anyway so there's no incentive to get more recipes.
I don't think it's unreasonable to have these since I believe RIFT has most if not all these things.