Well, for those among you (like me) who were hoping NWI would be at least considering a friends-only option in co-op, I was informed today through Support that there are no plans for that feature. ....which would be fine for me if at least they were considering server rentals for console like DayZ has but that too is not something they are giving serious thought to.
Bugs aside (like the preset issues and crashes), this is the one thing that has been spoiling our experiences in Sandstorm co-op. Initially, playing with random folks wasn't an issue as people were finding their footing in the game and overall had a cool demeanor. People were also more inclined to work as a team.
Now our only hope is to have enough people from our group in a given session to have a much bigger influence over the gameplay. .....but that's getting hard too as they seem to be losing interest due to the problems with randoms along with the crashes and other issues.
This is sad news and is making the new Portal feature in BF2042 (coming out next week) a lot more attractive. We may end up dumping Sandstorm until they can at least start offering servers but by then, it might be too late.