Gosh, I've been tired ALL day, I FINALLY remembered one more thing I meant to suggest.
B. DON'T penalize for defeat. Good god, why? Death and defeat are already negative and sometimes shameful situations, so why compound them further by breaking gear, taking XP or money, weakening the player to the point they can't possibly go on, or force them into a negative debuff they must either sit out for OR buy from the cash store to get rid of it. I have never understood the point of further pushing players for bad design, foolish mistakes, rookie mistakes, being unprepared, bad team match up, and so on some of which being out of their hands. Defeat already takes you out of the fight and fun, it can be embarrassing, sometimes it requires long travel times to get back to where you were (sometimes making the whole team wait for you), and in some cases cost you achievements, prizes, or whole missions, so why have yet another punishment lined up. Frankly I think it not only adds insult to injury and just...why...but but quashes creativity to come up with new ideas, strategies, theory and curiosity testing, or coming up with extra little fun ideas. One of the few things I love about STO is there's no penalty for defeat (except on STF's or higher difficulties). If they can do it, it should work easily anywhere else.