So my thread got closed because a few people decided to turn it into 15 pages of:
"'gw2 is bad'
'no you are bad I'm telling on you'x5
'no u'"
etc
and since I can't post there anymore, I just wanted to say that I logged in again tonight to give it one last try, and for some reason the graphics were 10 times better. I was even able to set it to max and not lag. I don't really know what changed, but I am guessing that they did some optimization.
Anyone have any other ideas as to how it improved so drastically?
I still think that the graphics are not quite as good as the other AAA MMOs, but they were pretty good, and at least good enough. The combat is fun, and I like how you 'skill up' from attacking. The story is not nearly as good as SWTOR, but at least it doesn't have someone like Chris Metzen writing it. From what little I saw, GW2's dynamic events seem to be a bit better than Rift's rifts.
All in all, its not going to pull me away from SWTOR, but I am most likely going to buy it in a couple months when the price comes down as something to do between content patch lulls.