So far, STO has gone in the right direction, and hopefully it continues to do so in 2014.
While STO has had many improvements over the years, it's also had many bad decisions made. Making the Romulan a "mini-faction" is one of the major bad decisions. As is the introduction of the Galor Class lockbox, which effectively prohibits them from adding a Cardassian "mini-faction". The Cardassians already have a limited amount of ship classes in canon, and removing their most known class from being a part of the faction, would be a big mistake. As a result, the only "likely" next mini-faction, would be some form of independent Borg (former Borg/ex Borg), and naturally people will want to be able to fly Borg ships. I don't know about you, but I don't see the fun in having players flying Intrepid, Defiant and Galaxy classes, and fighting neutered/balanced Borg cubes. Borg are suppose to be intimidating. They should be deadly. For a player faction, they'd need to be balanced to other ships.
Daniel Stahl was an excellent Executive Producer prior to his leaving Cryptic to work for Zynga. Under Stephen D'Angelo's "temporary" leadership, the game suffered immensely, and communication with the devs were largely shut down. After Stahl returned to Cryptic and his post as EP, he wasn't nearly as communicative as he once was, and many bad decisions were made over the course of his tenure (the removal/reinstatement of Dilithium rewards in Season 7 being one of the major offenders). You also have the fact that most forms of income in the game, whether they be Dilithium or Mark rewards, were cut in half or lower still. The "DOff Grinder" at the Academy's saw a major pricehike. Foundry "Fleet Mark" rewards were added/removed over the course of his tenure, the list goes on.
Now after all that, how anyone can sit there, and with a straight face saying "
STO has gone in the right direction", is beyond me. STO is headed down a dark path, their 4th project will further prove this point in time. I find very little enjoyment in the game these days, besides grinding Dilithium, and converting to Zen. Not paying a dime on this game, when as stated, it has far too many problems, and has had far too many bad decisions over the years.