Republic.

With 15 flashpoints at launch ( and all of them with a hero mode for max level) two operations, companions, crafting, space rails combat, Huttball (OMG HUTTBALL) this is going to kick so much ass.

I'm going towards Jedi Consular or Jedi Knight tank spec. Not sure which one yet. I'll be fairly grey, with a penchant towards light side.

If your interested, the internets largest thread on this is actually over at mmo-champion, started by one of the mods by the name of Trollsbane. It has every last bit of information that's not covered by NDA on the first page.

I've been thinking of maybe trying to get a Story Forums guild together, and I might extend it to SoL, but it all depends on if I get enough time.

They have some interesting Guild Rivalry + Guild Ally systems that I've not heard to much about, but it essentially tries to place those guilds on the same server.

As for the way gear looks, well.. Gear matching is only towards the chest piece for colors.

What you can wear is based off of faction, Advanced Class, light/dark/grey.

Titles will be based off of story choices, and what side you play will change the ending of the class story.

They have a space station to launch into Flashpoints from, though as I understand it no real cross server LFG system (which is a plus).

Ohh, and as for appearance.. Not exactly a tab, they have something called modifications. Which means you can keep an older piece of armor, and get better mods. The better mods you get, the better your old piece of gear is. It's essentially an appearance tab, but not quite.