Any challenge in the earlier games could be attempted as many times as the player chose, with no loss other than time, due to the fact that multiple save games could be kept and reverted to at any time - there was no loss that could not be recovered.. I don't see a compelling need to change the game that all players bought to suit the desires of a subset of player who don't accept the game for what it is and would rather it morphed into something that it is not.
and see I don't find that there's enough offered with a shared universe that really justifies removing the ability to have those proper singleplayer features.
Open is boring because it's
Exactly - most good MMO have an Open-PvE game mode that this one sadly lacks....
most mmo's also have PVE that isn't as tedious or as slow.. I mean at least have some aliens that aren't just thargoids, lizardpeople, rat people, weird mutant dolphin-headed men who'll squeak and squack at you.. I mean wow at the very least had some interesting building, level, and dungeon design. there isn't enough here for PVE, PVP, or any MMO-type experience. (they also don't have shared universes)..
Auction Houses, direct player trading, storage for commodities, etc..
this impacts the singleplayer as none of the systems that, at least in other titles, might work to keep the singleplayer interesting or varied seem overly restricted in order to make this whole shared universe work.