The best time to be in the game is now, imo. With the Frigate rebalances and eventually all ship types being rebalanced means that we don't see the same five ships over and over. Getting in a frigate to pvp has never been easier and a wide variety to choose from, this'll only become better once the Logi and EW frigates rebalance come Winter.
Yeah, that's probably the good side of it.
I'd say the tech escalation between WoW(/SWTOR) and Eve are nothing alike. I've played all three and while I've never gotten 'epic' stuff in WoW, the stats stacking in SWTOR meant even at Level50 if you didn't have the highest tier pvp gear you barely scratched your opponent.
Funny, I have had a series of fights with pvp stuffed friends in SWTOR when I only had my pve lvl 50 set and won 2 out of 3 fights with them. It was, of course, partly due to the fact that I had a good class, but still.
Eventually though, I agree that there is a clear difference of level between epic stuff and the basic stuff. And I bet it is even higher in WoW (which I havent played, have only heard a lot about). My point is that I find eve quite similar in that fashion, so I disagree, but I know we are not a lot to think that way, especially since it is more subtle and less "obvious in your face" with Eve.
Where as you can, and people do, take tech 1 frigs out and murder t2/faction ships.
I am not speaking about possibilities and exceptions. As I said above, I was able to overcome epic stuffed people with basic stuff in other MMOs as well. It doesn't mean it is the standard.
Back on Topic:
Looking forward to these changes to FW. Not having to worry about NPCs in defensive plexs (and people actively defensive plexing!) means things just got a little easier for me.
That's what I don't understand in their logic. They say at the same time that people will have to pay attention and be active to run plexes, and yet they say that NPCs are irrelevant or negligible. Where is the logic in that ?
It feels like they are walking a thin line of a fragile balance between NPCs able to prevent people from afk running plexes and NPCs not powerful enough to threaten pvp in said plexes.