CCP has already stated that there will be no combat in stations when they presented Walking in Stations. And they have stated they would like to have it so mercs can meet up with potential clients in bars and such face to face. So all in all, no combat in stations.

Just because one person is in a pod doesnt mean the rest of the ship is deserted. This is indicated in the novels, as well as on EVElopedia. Depending on the faction and ship size, there are various support crews. The beginning of the Empyrean Age novel starts with an infiltrator on an Amarr ship, with the crew reacting.

For the time being however, boarding ships isnt practical. What needs to happen though, to give that CQB feel, is to make it mandatory for an eve alliance to take a station/outpost, would require the use of DUST mercs to gain entry and take objectives. Otherwise, the only option is to destroy the station, somethign eve players have been begging for, opening the option to punative conquests.

I proposed in a post that EVE ships be given new module slot for 'internal security' modules, to defend against and counter boarders.

It really depends on the ship, and the system behind it.

If you target a ship that's gonna get instapopped, then you have wasted your shot. The system is self-limiting. You don't need to limit it to certain kinds of ships because it is self-limiting. It would give an advantage to fleets that have strong communication: they could send boarders to cripple or even capture high value targets. I see a lot of people saying 'no this won't work it takes too long and ships blow up' but I guess you've never flown in fleets. Good fleets call targets and communicate.

If the defender installs a DUST 514 Merc internal security module, it could automatically add their ship to the playlist for people to join in the 'ship-boarding' queue, with the payouts automatically deducted from the pilot, when the ship is hit with boarders.

If you have Dust players in your corp you can work with, you could have a 'private' lobby, where your corps Dust mercs could be standing by in major fleet battles to spawn on any ship that needs assistance, or to spawn in any boarding craft, and only allowing in freebooter mercs from the queue as needed.

Ships and stations would have base level NPC defenses, which could be augmented with modules that affect the terrain of the map, the difficulty of the NPCs, and the ability to hire Dust mercs. These would fit in new internal security module slots.