Here's the idea:
Up to 4 legion members (Or perhaps extend to friends list?) can form like, a "squad" to fight in. There are several benefits and disadvantages...

Pros:
1) Each member will be able to use all "common" buffs on any member of the squad. By common, I mean infinite number of, so NPC drops, Battle Markets would be allowed. This does not include energy refills, but does include hull/shield refills.
2) They would be able to fight NPCs quicker
3) Their NPC slots would be added together.
4) Some members would be able to see NPCs they would not normally.

Cons:
1) Loot is shared. This includes XP. Therefore, if 3 people kill a charger, they get 10xp each. Anyone who did not hit the NPC gets no loot.
2) Only the highest rank's NPC pool is taken. Matched NPCs also match to the highest level.
3) Loot is not multiplied. Yeah. If 4 people hit a Troop Carrier, only 1 will get the loot. The others, however, will get a consolation prize of something (dark badges?) based off of the rarity of the NPC.
3a) Instead of loot not being multiplied, all rare/uncommon/ex. rare NPCs would be far rarer. Dan's call.
4) You are only eligible for NPCs up to your group size. So in a group of 2, you can only see solo (and 2 person) elites. In a group of 3, 3 person and a group of 4, 4 person.

So it's basically co-op NPC hunting.

I'm not really sure how it would be faster. Regardless though, if the targets are based on the highest rank in the group, the others would be fighting stronger NPCs for a fraction of the xp.

Mod: loot
I suggest all loots(artifact not exp) be put into a loot pool that can be opened at the end of the hunting session and goes through a weighted round robin system where the frequency of drawing item is correlated to dmg done during the session.
alternative: still weighted round robin but the draws are randomized each time instead of manually choosing

would probably be the fairest distribution and remove the need for "consolation prize" for most part. alternative is for possible anti-multi protection.

+1 To this and the whole idea.