Concerning the gating of the grade 9 nodes behind the kotfe story I would find this very annoying too. A simple solution would be if I get access to the kotfe areas for all my alts via Ship etc. after I have played the kotfe Story the first time. And I also would like it very much to be able to sort the companions in the crew skill dialog. At least by influence. More sorting criteria like by Name would be even better. And of course the dialog should remember the last choosen sort criteria.