I also am a subscriber. Like every game Cryptic has developed (and all MMOs in general), STO will likely need about a year to 18 months since release to fully live up to its potential. City of Heroes was twice the game it started as after only a few major content patches. I still feel like there is a lot of good in the game already, but it's not yet a "grabber" in the way other MMOs often are. It will be, though.
Part of it is the economics of the game industry. Cryptic as a developer doesn't have the resources to keep a game in development indefinitely. They're not Blizzard or Valve, they don't have the capital or the clout. They had to release sometime, and what they delivered was a very solid game with a pretty innovative space combat mechanic, but one that was lacking end-game content, mission variety, or compelling community features. These negatives are the kind of thing that are easy to rectify and patch into a game well after launch.
I'm not an apologist: there are features that Cryptic marketed the game on that have yet to materialize, and they need to appear before too long or there will be some very disgruntled players. But mark my words: by summer of 2011, STO will be a significantly better game than it is now, and many features will be almost unrecognizable from the launch. The only trick for them is not having their subscriber base shredded by The Old Republic when it launches.
Wow... this post ended up way longer than I expected... I wonder if anyone will bother to read it?
