We need a "Turn shield on" command. And I do not mean "Hold down the X key".
I want to be able to turn on my shields, and then activate chat.
Lacking that, I can't really chat while in combat. And then, I'm not really working with my teammates -- we're independents, interfering with each other.
Heck, I want to turn on shields and submit bug reports sometimes :-)
(and as good as the starter shields are: You can't attack, or prep an attack. Nice balance feature.)
Hardware issue: Some keyboard/system combinations actually have an annoying behavior: if you have more than one key pressed, and one is released, after a few seconds, all the keys a reported as released. I've seen this more often on Macs with PC-usb keyboards. But it means that you cannot hold down the shield key on those systems -- we really do need a "turn it on and leave it on" command.
This wouldn't be a bad idea, but I'm not too sure about the reasons you give. Generally, your shield isn't going to hold up long enough to chat, and bug reports (I'm sure you've got tons of 'em) can always wait until the fight has ended.