You must be joking The plotline for FS2 was at least as good as that for FS1 but got hamstringed by the fact that FS3 was never made.
Exactly, which makes the FS2 storyline half good, and FS1 storyline totally good...at least I could "get into" the fs1 storyline (FS1 had emotional involvement on plot levels, instead of FS2's de-personalisation of the plot, you seem simply a cog in a very large wheel, in FS1, you /CAN/ Change the world...), thus not having to fly systematically mission after mission so I would be able to see the Command Briefing (high point of the game), as I did in FS2.
There is much more depth to the storyline in FS2. Look at the number of campaigns with different explainations for the shivans actions in Capella or for what Bosch was up to.
What you call "depth" is the fact that the story after FS2 wasn't finished, so everyone can take their little nutty idea and make his/her own FreeSpace3...and there is nothing "depth"-ty concerning that. And uhh, there were a lot of campaigns after FS1, however since
actually managed to make fs1 in the gray area of finished/non-finished (great move in my opinion, for the time being in 1998), there weren't so many options to choose the next story from.
FS2 also allows you to play in a higher resolution and has nebulas which add a lot to the game.
And what exactly do they add, except them being the core for the FS2 story
The useless tag missions? Lack of sensors? Escort missions that somehow manage to repeat themselves over and over? (not counting the copies of fs1 missions)
I find I prefer to play in FS2 over FS1. A lot of people installed the port for exactly that reason. I don`t see any kind of huge effort to port FS2 to FS1 
...because fs1 was SO DAMN GOOD that it just HAD to be put in a better graphic environment? FS2 is about graphics, that's the only big improvment you get.
The only three things good about FS2 are:
- It continues the story where FS1 left it (D'OH)
- It has better graphics(probably the biggest factor why people percieve it as "better")
- By :v: and Interplay parting ways, it gave everyone the time to think up their own FS3, so those people were able to waste additional 2-3 years (well not waste, I mean it is fun for the people doing it, as much fun as it is for me playing it, however if fs3 was released 2-3 years ago [as it should have been, {there was only a one year difference between fs1 and fs2}] then none of this would ever exist) in making their own campaigns.
...and that's it...while FS1 still heavily dominates the mission quality/sounds/animations/story (and not only because it managed to finish, but because it wasn't stretching out into oblivion, and trying to leave the important bits for its successor), not to mention its content/originality.
What was so great about fs2? Beams? Flaks? I'd take a 100 of those rupturing lasers - aka 3_direct_hits_and_you_=_dead (with sheilds of course
), than any of the beams from FS2.
FS1 was balanced too, the ships were all equalistic, and the weapons were severely limited by energy intake if they were good (banshee), also flail was tactical, not like in FS2 (morning star) where it can actually be used to kill if you're good enough, in fs1 you would take a very
very long time to do that....in fs2 shields have no real effect, in fs1 you could actually take the energy in your shields to hold off a few missiles and such.
