What SWTOR Did Wrong

I have been playing SWTOR since early access and I must say I have been enjoying my experience thus far. The single player story lines are engrossing and I have been taking my sweet time to get to 50 (I hit level 45 last night). I am a PvP'er at heart, so a lot of my leveling has come from warzones. Coming from WAR and EVE, I, like may out there, find that the PvP in SWTOR is missing something. Okay, it's missing more than a thing, it's missing several things, but I think one of those things will do more to hurt the future of PvP in the game than any other:

No Faction Pride

This may not seem like it's a big deal to some, but for me, this is a deal breaker. As I was looking through old screenshots of my days in WAR for a previous post, I actually recognized many character names, not just from Destro, but from Order as well. I loved being in the RvR lake and hearing someone scream, "There's Dissb, focus Dissb!" There was something exciting about seeing a guild tag and being able to attach a reputation to it. Believe it or not, I actually liked being recognized, and subsequently focused, while fighting. All it did was elevate my level of hatred for the opposing faction and make me want to fight that much harder next time around. In the grand scheme of things, it also helped develop a sense of realm pride. Forums posts were filled with emotion and smack talk. Order hated Destro and Destro hated Order, it was as simple as that.

In SWTOR, anyone can make a character on any faction on any server, which completely forfeits any chance of fostering a PvP community. Even if they added meaningful open world objectives, like capturable bases, many players would simply log into whatever faction was winning at the time. Sure, there would be players and guilds who would stick to their side no matter what, but they are few and far between. Even in WAR, there were stories of Mitt Romney-esque flip floppers who would keep two subscriptions going just so they could play for whichever realm was dominant at the time. What incentive does a player have to stick with his/her faction when they are outnumbered and getting rolled by superior numbers? I hate to say it, but many players would just logout then login with their character that's on the winning side in order to take advantage of the easy valor gains.

I could be wrong about all of this. They could introduce a revamped Illum in the future that does a much better job luring players to the planet. They could come up with take-and-hold objectives that give faction-wde buffs which would be enticing enough for players to clobbers each other over. But in the end, what's the point? Do I actually feel like I have have accomplished something when I logout? Sure, my character hits level 60 valor and the fights are fun, but all I am doing is running on that incentive based hamster wheel that only keeps me playing to gain a higher level so I can wear better gear, which helps me gain a higher level so I can wear better gear, which helps me....oh, wait.