Absolutely. The gap between war hero and recruit is staggering. I don't even want to play WG anymore. I don't mind being outmatched, I do mind being so outmatched that I can't even scratch the other team. Things might change when all the war hero people go to ranked WGs but maybe not. TOR originally promised a smaller gear gap than WOW in PVP which they haven't delivered on. PVP should be all about skill not farming for a magical resource called expertise which has no relevance outside of a BG. WOW made the same mistake, I always hated resilience

My character is mainly light side and he has about 4000 light side points. He also has 100 darkside points. Can you actually max out both of them and be pure light and dark at the same time?

I leveled a sage to 25 in beta as pure heals and had lots of difficulty. I wouldn't say it really plays all that much like a Disc priest. This time I rolled a shadow (something I regret) but in hindsight I think a lot of my problems might have been related to dps and tanks having no idea how to play their classes. 2 major differences I think exist from WOW: 1. Sage Healers have very limited mana (ok ok force). Some dps or tank standing in bad stuff will get you OOM real fast. In Wow we could have compensated for that for a brief time but here we need to pull them to safety or just let them die. It's a change of perspective for lots of veteran WOW healers. 2. Generally WOW healers want everyone to be at full health all the time which is something very difficult to manage to TOR. We just don't have enough resources to do it unless people play very smart. Also because Jedi Guardians, Jedi Shadows, and Trooper Vanguards all think they can tank (even if they are not remotely specced for it) they don't think too much about pulling aggro when dpsing. I've been in parties where all the dps were independently tanking their own mobs which is guaranteed to overwhelm the healer. Maybe this will change as people understand their rolls better.

Leveling my consular has been challenging for me so far. Does anyone have a spec or strategy that worked well for them that they'd be willing to share? Thanks

In several postings I read, it described Jedi Shadows as having finishing moves like the rogue from wow. Like http://swtorlevelguide.com/swtor-jedi-shadow/ and the TOR wiki. I like building up and cashing in which is one reason I took a Jedi Shadow. But now I'm lvl 30 and I don't have any finishing moves. Am I missing something? Did they get removed in beta or were the authors just making things up? If the shadow spec is really just stand there and use double slash and project until the thing dies that's awfully boring

I'm about level 30 as a Shadow. I rolled Sage in beta and I'm trying shadow now. I struggled to level as a healer in beta (my companions might have been stronger than dps classes, who can tell) but it was very painful to level so I tried a shadow this time. I admit I don't especially care for it so far. The rogue/tank thing seems to cook up somewhat oddly. My usual strategy is to backstab backstab and then double slash until particle acceleration procs and whack them with Project. Also I've heard various people gripe about Qyzen as a companion since even when tank specced I'm found myself relying to Qyzen as my companion rather than the 2nd one (no spoilers). I'm not really sure what to tell you