just before shipyard release I started.

The only thing I have noticed is that people drill til the level cap then log out til the next, or come on only to converse then log out after capping. that is a personal choice new content won't fix that.
Yes those listed are the main categories.
Farming, pvp,ect. But where it can be expanded upon without dev assistance is within the guild. One thing for instance is you could hold a engineer only pvp guild event. Or even an engineer only gamewide tournament, since the classes are unbalanced in pvp.
The classes were never meant to be balanced, they all serve seperate funtions, its like taking an olympic runner and expecting him to win a swimming competition. Pvp should be seperated by classes.

Anyways, if you cant find ways to use the system to make it fun, interesting, or even exciting, I don't know what to tell you. But the opportunity is there and there are some in the game that are trying to do just that. Check the forum contests you may find ideas there that can be tweeked on a smaller scale to meet time restrictions for your guild, then again if you aren't interested in playing with your guild, why be in it?