Well considering most of the assumptions running around directly contradict things that the developers have blatantly stated in various interviews on the news sites....you're right that most of the negativity is not correct.

As for vehicles, as someone who has used them from closed beta, I am sad to see that they wont be in the initial release but I completely understand why they won't be. It's not even a matter of balance....we can push numbers around for years, and we have, but there was still something terribly wrong with the system in general. Vehicle roles in most cases were not distinctively different enough from infantry roles. It spawned this stupid argument that I've grown to hate which is "Well how many infantry should it take to kill a vehicle" which...while an important question, is a terrible basis to develop the system off of.

I'm starting to lean more towards the idea that vehicles would be best suited in certain game modes where their purpose was not only unique from infantry, but necessary for the mode itself. For example imagine a mode where you needed to capture points on opposite walls of a canyon but the only way to access them would be via dropship shuttling back and forth across the chasm. Or a mode where infantry must escort and support HAVs to break down a shield generator that is vulnerable to vehicle fire only.

In cases like this, you end up with a need for vehicles in a setting that makes sense and can be rewarding, without leaving them in an ambiguous state where they tend to encroach on infantry roles, or straight up act like a power up (Or power down in some cases). As vehicles are in DUST now, the roles they fill are simply too similar to the things infantry do, and no amount of stat tweaking will fix that.

That being said, I think simply pushing them into the game as they are in DUST would be irresponsible...Id rather the base infantry gameplay be hashed out and then we can develop proper modes and roles for vehicles later....may that before or after 1.0

I maintain that it's not so much lazy as it is a continued lack of commitment from CCP as a whole. It's the continuation of a small team with a small budget working at a slow pace. Hiring more staff is the absolute least they could do, one of the big reasons for balance difficulties and design flaws is likely due to having reduced staff and resources.

I mean, since Rouge Wedding this game has barely recieved any actual changes, I mean the DUST team did great with what they had but the point isn't what they did or didn't do, it's what was taken from them by CCP and never returned.