Psychoti

Yes, there is a monthly fee associated with the game. However, there are ways to get new content and time by purchasing boxed editions of the game (only once per edition, though!)

Good vs Evil Edition
Architect Edition
Going Rogue Edition (this is almost a must now since it is linked to end-game content)

I am probably forgetting others.

As was previously stated, heals are the weakest form of support. That doesn't mean they 'suck', but if that's all you want to do with a character then you are not as 'true-blue' in your support as you could be.

I feel that debuffs, while powerful, can have a little bit of a learning curve. For that reason, and only that reason, I'm not going to hop up and down shouting "Rad! Dark! Rad! Dark!"

It sounds like you really want to see those green numbers fly. If that's the case, do go with Empathy as a Defender primary or Controller secondary. Don't just rely on your heals, though! I can't stress that enough. Empathy has heals, and they're nice, but it really shines with the buffs at its disposal. Fortitude is an incredible buff that increases team killing speed (when you get the recharge to where you can keep it on most of the team, anyhow) significantly while protecting them from harm as well. I say this a lot, but dead mobs don't shoot back. You have buffs to keep your allies going from spawn to spawn by keeping their endurance and health bars full. Use these buffs often and you'll be a star.

A decent alternative is Thermal for Controller and Corruptor secondaries. You don't get the defense buff of Fortitude or the group buffs of Regenerative and Recovery Aura, but you do increase your team's survivability with heals and resistance buffs. You also get powerful debuffs later on that can make encounters with strong enemies very trivial.

I think the problem for me is that they're not 'challenging', really - except, as I said, my fire tank against Malta - it's just that they're not fun. Tedious tasks get just as boring when they're tips as when they're the same old radio missions over and over. It took me a little over an hour to do 'A Tortured Scream'. Was it hard? No, no it wasn't. Was it challenging? Again, not in the usual sense. Was it so annoying that I will quit tip teams that are going to do it in the future? YES. I could have done a TF or SF instead of that tip in the amount of time it took. Ridiculous.

Same here. I *love* fighting CoT, they have such varied and interesting enemies. I just hate the places they hang out in, especially blue caves. I've actually deleted characters because I had three active 'blue cave' missions. Granted, that was before auto-complete and the ability to have more missions.

Then do so. You don't have to do them now. However, that does not mean that other people will not enjoy the content as it stands.

First off, I like your sig saying you play easy mode but you seem to dislike AE. Might as well dislike all the people conversing in Pocket D and under Atlas because they're not running teams either... but I digress.

As others have stated you can join global channels. You can leave Atlas Park at any time. Or use the 'search' function to find teams. Or even leave Freedom, that is actually the only server I've been on that has frequent requests to join farms in the Atlas Park AE.