Sadly I believe your wrong here, I think with some sort of community in this game this thread would not exist.
Exploitable and unbalanced SWG Definitely was, theres no way to balance the hundred of thousands of templates possible.
Now for me im not even a Star Wars fan (im sure that will get me in trouble on these forums) So me sticking around for Star Wars definitely isnt the case.
As far as SWG being elitist if definitely was not. I was in high school at the time, which meant i had very little time to play. And i was still extremly competitive as a pistoleer or as a tkm/bh which definitely were not the best pvp classes when you had to face stackers. My gear was barely average, and i could still dominate a match due to skill and intelligence and not due to the fact i played the game 46 million hours more then the next guy so my armor is better.