Are you going to close off Ilum and do a valor rollback until you fix this joke? Right now if you are an Imp, it is a case of rolling with the zerg and reaping the rewards, and if you are on the side of the republic, there is no point going to Ilum to be faced with the zerg and corpse camping, where you actually have to logout. This is the case on the server that I am on, and with the faction split that is across all server (apart from RP servers) I would say that these sentiments are being shared by a large number of players. The thing is, if this continues, republic do not bother with the open world PvP, then there is no point for imps to go, due to no republicans, so it is the death of open world PvP in this game. I think this is an important question for a lot of potential subscribers.

Most real Hardcore PvP guilds will have checked to see what the population split was before launch and rolled to the weaker side. Tainted on TOFN have done that, along with MANY other guilds on that server. However on your note about Hardcore players not caring about the story that is not strictly true. Most will want to get to see the end game PvP content, but a lot will also have alts for the story factor. As for appearance, man you do not know many PvPers, most of them want looks to go with their egos!