Pretty good article, however, i must point out that there is a quite a bit of "bad" information being relayed there, i'm sad to say. Like you pointed out some of it is your opinion and i totally understand that, let me point out some differences of opinion.. ;) I'll prob end up tearing it apart, i apologize, it's my ACD don't take it personal, nobody ever listens to me anyways.. :P
Mainly like it can be said any STF can be run by any combo of professions, some combo's make it more easy then others of course. But there is actually 2 optimal teams, 1 tac, 2 eng, 2 sci and 2 tac, 2 eng, 1 sci. I personally have 5 tac'd, 5 eng'd them but optimal are those. Mainly cause Tac skills are solo buffs for the most part, where eng's and sci's compliment each other and the team. In an STF if you are running 2 or more tacs a Eng should NEVER be using an exploit weapon. Engies should always be expose, and if you need that extra exploit the Sci should be using it. And kits.. the Squad Leader kit is actually the most worthless Tac kit in game, unless you are running the 3+ tacs, that's because if you are taking full advantage of the tac's they should be nowhere near the rest of the group.
You described the roles as the "trinity" well there is no trinity other then the fact there are 3 main prof's heh. That being is as there is no aggro control built into STO there is no true tanking capability. Whoever hits first or is perceived as the biggest threat is attacked. That's why engies are nice, cause turrets automatically are considered highest threat even though sometime they are 100% worthless in a situation. Then they will go for the Tac's and sci and finally engies.
You didn't go into space much, but by KA you should be fully purp'd up.
Other gear, unless you like carrying around tons of consumables, the shield recharges are worthless, they are on the same cooldown as your other hypos, and power cells. And you can recover shield just by breaking LOS for 2.3 seconds which is not hard to do and a hypo will make up for any loss there. And the armor recommendation of "Energy Dampening Armor" is great for PVP and general PVE but is pretty much garbage for STFs. For the STF's you want "PolyAlloy Weave" reason being, 85% of borg damage is Kinetic and physical. Only the few that shoot at you will the energy protect. When they assimilate you, gravimetric you, punch you, that's all physical and kinetic. You are better off wearing the PolyAlloy in the STF's.
Again this was not mean to detract from your article it's good. And the one thing I enjoy about STO is the fact that you can pretty much do them with anything. You can go 5 man sci with geophysicist kits, 3 tacs 2 engies etc. There are the teams that make it go more smoothly of course, but can be done as long as each person knows what they are doing and their part. (Even newbies if they are educated on what to do, will know their part.) And as such, each person is going to find something that they like that they feel is the best. You and your numbers say 3 tac, sci, engie. My numbers say 2 tac, 2 engie, sci. (don't ask to compare numbers though, i have you beat lol.) But very good article none the less.
