It's been said before, your average (male) SWTOR player in his mid 30s with job and kids does not have the time to play in the conditions the increased repair costs dictate. While I can burn money on the cartel market like crazy and afford to pay plenty of real cash, I simply can't afford to play more than I'm playing now. If there's no mechanism for the majority of your player base to stay financially afloat with in game cash they're going to walk away. If my sub hadn't just ticked over I would have walked away already. I'm crossing my finger that a fix is in the pipeline, but quite frankly I'm getting more and more pessimistic about the game.
SWTOR can be an excellent mix between a serious MMO and an enjoyable past time for casual players. The increased repair cost have only tilted it in a way excluding anyone who is not willing or capable to spend twice the time on dailies they'd spend in progression runs.
And the formula that calculates repair cost is definitely out of whack. Below the repair costs for 1 death for
1 x Shadow tank, full black hole , with Cartel Chest, but BH shells otherwise: 9106 credites
1 x Sage DPS, mostly legacy gear, with BH and Dread Guard, 12600 credits,
1 x Commando DPS, mostly legacy gear, with BH and Dread Guard, 8329 credits,
1 x Gunslinger, mostly Tionese with some recruit, 5761
It seems there's a vanity penalty if you wear certain shells.