The sad thing is most of us will continue playing STFs one way or the other anyway.
One thing that is true, is that the system does offer new rewards in addition to the old stuff.
So we naturally are going to want that.
The new passives and captain powers are a very good incentive to level up the reputation.
But I could have spent the time doing different stuff for a change, since I got a lot of the equivalent value already to fill out the projects...