Good thing nobody cares about your "hardcore" Tor/WoW Pvp expertise.
Eve too harsh for ya?

Have to agree with Darren, though I´d begin in the middle of Commander with a steep rise to the XP curve.
It actually makes sense even from a business point of view, with the first non-fluff Cryptic Point ships available there.

What bothers me the most about this, is that it shows Cryptic has a severe lack of understanding that character growth and leveling are a big chunk of a great RPG experience.
Which does not mean to get it over as quickly as possible!