They had to release something, the word polish is funny because nothing besides questing about this game is polished at all. If you think otherwise you are lying to yourself because you like the game or Bioware that much. Questing I admit is totally perfectly polished and wonderful experience. Everything else is clunky, feels rushed design wise and almost like a lot of the MMO portions were more after thoughts (GTN, UI, PvP, professions after 50, no Mods really, no combat log).
I do love the game so far, but more as a single player game than as an MMO. I don't really care about the galactic plauge/"zombie" thing but that might be because I'm slighly burned out on Zombie style stuff. Seems like its all over recently. I am really more excited about more polish on what exists and the legacy system being expanded to be what it was promised.
I'll agree with you to a fault that the game is still rustic and needing more patches to fix some of the more annoying bugs (sluggish combat bug is one of the big ones), but the lack of mods (do not even say UI, because you want mods to fix the UI), a combat log will come later, they have even said this. As for PvP and professions, what did you honestly expect? A truckload of 50+ profession gains and excruciating amounts of PvP? I take it for what it is; a new game.
Professions at 50 still have things for offer. For example, Artifice has Lightsabers and rare crystals, such as magenta. I cannot speak much on PvP though, as I have not tried it, but opinions vary. Some say it is fine for what it is, others complain. It seems more an opinion based issue, than something actually wrong.
All of that aside, I'm glad you are keeping an open mind about the game and giving it time. That is really what is needed to truly gauge this game.