I rather like it, to be honest. Since the revamp, if you know what you're doing, elite's no longer a complete nightmare. And I far prefer to do the ground events for fleet marks, over being dumped into another starbase blockade with a group that knows of no tactic other than "Fedball". Aside from the occasional Leroy, there's nowhere near the capacity for stupid crap on ground maps. And even when it does happen, it's less annoying. They just need to be condensed a little. No more two hundred yard sprints between hostiles, please.

As for science's place, I don't play my science toons often, mainly just stick to the one tactical, so I can't really speak to that, but the best Boffs for ground combat are definately the science guys, hands down. Their healing and expose abilities are just great.