I don't mind the pets. Solo content has always been massively imba either in favor of (Rift and Aion, to name a couple) or against healers, just because of endurance and utility; giving each class options to burst their solo quests down or slow-and-steady tank 'em deals with that. (Plus, it worked for FFXI, though the balance there was that you and your universal pet could get shredded on 6-man content almost as fast as you bit it alone.) On the other hand, knowing FFXI leaves me pretty unimpressed with the plot focus, because it's just "I'm playing KotOR instead of FF6" rather than an amazing new paradigm.
Fuck the skill bloat, though. I've settled on BH as my main and even with healer and DPS specs I've got like a quarter million creds of skills left that are completely useless to learn.