I'm Defense specced and wear my tanking gear all the time. For normal/strong packs, I use Kira in her armor penetration stance. With decent gear, she tears through normal mobs nearly as fast as I do. For elite/champion mobs, I use Doc in his Med Watch stance. So long as whatever I'm fighting is interruptable and doesn't have an enrage timer, I can wear them down with Doc keeping me healthy. If I'm feeling extremely lazy, I'll use Doc in his Blaster Stance. This way he keeps me topped off and throws some extra damage at whatever I'm fighting. I don't use any other companions. As a tank, I don't have a use for T7 or Scourge, and Rusk was underwhelming when I used him.

I encountered this bug as well. I submitted a customer service ticket and abandoned the quest to save space in my quest log. The ticket was subsequently closed, but no resolution provided. Seems that the bug is something the QA team is aware of, but not necessarily able to devote time to at this point. Guess I'll just learn to ignore the quest symbol on my ship's mini-map for a while...

I would not be surprised to see a smartphone app hit the market for SWTOR, especially because of Erik Olsen's participation in the "Full Immersion: Taking Your Game Everywhere" panel at Game Developers Conference Online earlier this year. http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/16558-gdc-online-2011-day-1-live-blog-coverage/page-3 For those unaware, Mr. Olsen is a Senior Web Producer for BioWare Austin on the game. http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=8176761&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=B4E7&locale=en_US&srchid=daaf9687-d484-4ebe-81d4-45a8b6a67dfc-1&srchindex=1&srchtotal=1&goback=%2Efps_PBCK_erik+olsen_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*2_*1_Y_*1_*1_*1_false_1_R_*1_*51_*1_*51_true_CC%2CN%2CG%2CI%2CPC%2CED%2CL%2CFG%2CTE%2CFA%2CSE%2CP%2CCS%2CF%2CDR_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_162717_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2&pvs=ps&trk=pp_profile_name_link