I witnessed the travesty of the Combat Upgrade and NGE, but what we have left isn't THAT bad based on its own merits.
But now, since we have a completely new game on our hands, I'm going to rate it on its OWN merits. The game is mediocre in several areas, but trust me, it's not ALL THAT bad. I've played MUCH worse MMO's (cough, Shadowbane, cough). The environments are rather bland and uninspired. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the entire game is uninspired. This isn't what a Star Wars MMO should be. It should bring the excitement of the Star Wars universe to your PC. But other than races, some creatures, NPC's, and sound effects, you really don't get any feeling you're in the Star Wars universe. Probably the biggest pitfall of the game.
Sure, now you can pick Jedi as a starting class instead of having it as a reward for the hardcore gamers, but was it really worth all this? Did we really have to throw everything away?
So, in a way, I'm sitting on the fence. Star Wars Galaxies, as it is, is a fairly mediocre game, but it's not too terribly bad. But it does get repetitive. There are other MMO's far more worthy of your time, but if you insist on playing in the Star Wars universe, this is your only option as of this writing.
I still have the game installed and play it, but mainly because of the SOE Station Access Pass, which lets you play all of SOE's games. I mainly play EQ2, but I figured I'd just get the Access Pass so I could have access to SWG as well.
As long as you don't go in with your hopes up, you may find things to enjoy in the current state of SWG. I still have some fun with it. But I really do hope that Lucasarts takes their license elsewhere and produces an MMO worthy of the Star Wars name.
Hopefully, this review was helpful in some fashion.