So far I love the game, and I haven't had too much trouble in general chat getting into or organizing my own groups for the heroic quests or Flashpoints. Guild chat seems to be pretty quiet most of the times that I am on in the evening, but I am guessing that has a lot more to do with the way the story/quests play out than anything else right now.
I'm trying to come to grips with my Sith Assassin though. At 21 it feels like he is not doing enough damage compared to other classes, and I've been reading trying to figure out if it is the way I am playing, specced, etc, and it looks like I've specced right for DPS and am using the right abilities. I have a level 12 Powertech and he seems to do more damage than my Assassin and has better survivability. I'm going to keep plugging along on the Assassin and hope it gets better, but I don't see many Assassins and I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't because of what I am experiencing.
I have my ship, but have only flown a couple of places and have not participated in combat yet. I know I read an article from the producers before release and they said they viewed/intended it to be more of a mini-game that players could do if they wanted yet not be penalized if they didn't want to do it. They also said they may add more to it a way-later date, but it's going to stand as is for the time being. As a huge fan of the X-Wing and Tie-fighter series (I'm showing my age here), I'd love to see space combat evolve into something like that in the game.