"Why I didn't recommend SWTOR to people when it started, and why I would now"

When SWTOR started it was lacking a lot for an MMO that was competing against WoW and others. We were missing a group finder, tutorials were clunky and difficult to follow, and most of all, the community was extremely sparse. My experience in typing LFG into group chat yielded little results and even sometimes was met with hostility ("You know, if you would just finish it with your companion you'd be done by now" and the like). Clicking the "LFG" button on the social window didn't do much, either. It felt like a single player game that was difficult to get into with a hostile community that you were forced to interact with if you wanted to get the big quests done.