Perhaps because this is further from MMO and closer to arcade?

??? By Lt Commander 1 you have seen every single thing this game has to offer 5 times over. Good or bad, why do you need to go further to comment on the game?

I totally disagree. You dont have even the slightest bridge officer development yet. Do you even have 3 bridge officers yet by this time? Space combat is a different thing entirely when you have 4 officers with promoted skills to use. Yeah flying around in a tier 2 ship with 2 sets of ensign skills isnt fun. We get that.

Bah, BS. You might not have powerful BOs but you absolutely have enough BO skills to understand the mechanics and how it works with gameplay. In short, playing at Lt Commander is only different than playing at Captain because of the number of various skills you have - but the gameplay, and specifically the content and various things you can do, are the same few things as early on.

Heck, if what you are saying is true then STO is even more flawed than many are saying because by your analysis the first half of this already small game is flawed and unfun. I don't think that is necessarily the case in terms of fun, I think that the gameplay at low, mid, and high levels is mostly the same and certianly the things available to do are the same (patrol, defend, kill/scan X of these - essentially different frameworks for the same two things, scan something or kill something).