The needles are one of the things that was not included at launch, and so was not accounted for in the design. (I was talking about the state that "Ambuscade" was in for that first month or two.) Honestly, I'd bet that devs are probably kicking themselves for designing the augment system the way they did, but if it was something that was feasibly fixable, then they would have caved to the vocal pressure from both sides of the forums long ago. (Even if just to shut us up. lol)