I had to work all of july 4th weekend 

Only friday night? Aww.. how about til Saturday night  for those who might only get a couple hours tonight after we're back up   
Or midday if it's something that can be switched off without a restart.

Being someone who's finishing up T4, couple of things I've spoken to other players around my progress about.

The waypoint situation. The vendor waypoint is great, and a very important item to make your progress easier early on. The main issue being the cost of instances/repops once you get to about T5 onward. "Get a FWP" you say. Sure, when that becomes an option again. However some might not be comfortable, or simply cant afford to drop the 100$ for a single item in an otherwise free game. I'm all for donating for support, but for some it might be a little much.

I noticed someone else mention a different type of FWP that only lasts for a limited time. Great idea, mine was somewhat similar, and it's pretty much FWP Lite. A item that lets you create your free instance, however repops aren't free, but are also cheaper than a regular waypoint item. Or just another WP item that has cheaper creation/repop costs all around. This could cost less credits for those those not quite willing/able drop the cash for the regular FWP.

Bottom line is, newer people gearing up and breaking in to t5+ shouldn't be forced to choose between being able to afford instance costs, and getting necessary things like strike augs. And no, going and farming SLS just to make money, only to have to go farm more SLS when you need them for your augs is not a good option, that isn't fun for anybody. You're already going to have to do it enough just for your own augs and other items, let alone having to do it for money too.

I know there are probably some vets out there who think " Well thats how I had to do it, so it shouldn't be easier for anyone else." Great job, but that's not the kind of attitude that going to keep any new people around besides the occasional person that pops up with tons of free time and doesn't care about the extra grind.

I can't really comment on anything UW related, because I'm not focusing on that yet myself, besides noticing that yes, dminor seem to be the biggest pain to get out of any of the other essence, but that's been talked about already.

Anyways, for NEW STUFFS, I stopped playing live seriously around omens or that xpac with the dragons and stillmoon.. anything involving zones after that I'd enjoy seeing. I've messed around with some void zones on a couple other servers, and some of them feel like they would be great with an EZ flair.