the only Sci Fi universe that is comparable to Imperial/Republic Fleet are Babylon 5 (more powerful) and Warhammer 40k (more powerful) and BattleStar Galactica (equal). 2 have large capital ships capable of immense destructive power, heavy armoring and shielding and Galactica, while not really having as potent an arsenal, has some spectacular ship armor/defence technology. Star Trek, while futuristic, simply doesn't have the sheer amount of firepower or defensive tech/armoring to compete. Maybe the borg would be able to challenge several Imperial Star Destroyer... maybe. But then again, these other universe ships don't have obvious weak points like Star Wars capital ships tend to have. In the 40k and Babaylon and Galactica universe, you typically have to outright destroy the capital ships through sheer brute force. And while the Empire may be evil, the Imperium of Man (40k) are clearly fervently mad beyond reasoning. You don't mess with crazy people who love a 1/2 dead corpse and are freely willing to do all to cleanse the universe.

Yeah I really dislike politically correct answers. The truth is, there are some classes that are easier to do certain things with. For example, I started a Jedi Guardian and the tanking is a frustrating mess. Well, I guess it could be fun for some people but for myself, running around like a chicken from mob to mob is not my idea of fun. You have to rely on other people in your group to do things you should be able to do yourself as a class like picking up adds. So far as I have seen, Tor is a very melee unfriendly game what with most of the mobs being ranged classes and spread out and when adds spawn during encounter they are all over the place. You end up just running back and forth and slowly picking up aggro. So I rolled a vanguard and what a difference that made. It plays more like a traditional tank, except for the range tanking bit. Also, his dps is quite a bit higher than the guardian and he's got a ton of low CD or zero CD AOE. Perfect for picking up strays and adds. The truth is, you can make any class work out, but some classes are going to be easier than others. And in my opinion, the Vanguard is simply an easier class to tank with. It's a ton less hassle than the guardian. They can all tank, but some will just be more frustrating than others to tank with.

My wife's acer with a crappy discreet gpu runs the game pretty smoothly but I'm just guessing the game isn't optimised well yet. From all i can see, it isn't (or shouldn't be) anymore taxing than LOTRO but it runs about the same or even worse in some cases than lotro and that game has higher rez textures and from all accounts, looks like it is definitely more graphically demanding than swtor. I'd just say it's a matter of not being optimised yet at this stage.