In the old republic, is the better long term strategy commendations or gear

Since TOR is unreleased yet, no one can honestly answer this question. However with everything Bioware has shown so far, TOR appears to mimic or improve (hopefully) upon WoW in many aspects, such as companion characters to speed up preparing raid parties.

Furthermore in Star Wars Galaxies, the planets where quite large and offering plenty of exploration (if that is what you are looking for). Bioware is also focused on story, so I doubt a planet will be superficially large with large expanses of empty ground for size sake.

In terms of total land mass, my gut feeling is TOR will be comparable, if not large, than WoW. Don't forget that TOR will include space combat, therefore space zones must be included too.

TOR Forum: A little perspective on planet size

This is an old question but the current answer is now out of date.

As of Patch 1.2 the game supports the ability to move around most or possibly all of the ui elements that appear on screen and in general has a lot more customisation options than at launch.

http://www.swtor.com/info/media/trailers/quick-look-ui-customization is an official video demonstrating this.

You can access this through a small button just above the lock toolbars button on your toolbar or through the main options menu (ie where you'd go to select change preferences).

It includes three different defaults that you can use either as is or as a starting point ofr your own customisations.

The three options are a simple form with one action bar, the extended quickbars which gives you all the quickbars active and one that seems very similar to the standard WoW layout that I think is called "Classic" or something similar.