Star Trek Online (2011 iMac i7 3.4 ghz / 16gb ram / AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2gb vram)

From what I have read, and what I am experiencing, Star Trek Online does not work well in Parallels 6.

1. Currently my configuration is a 2011 i7 iMac with 3.4ghz, 16 gigabytes of RAM, a solid state hard drive (and an additional 2TB internal SATA drive, though Parallels is on the SSD), and an AMD Radeon HD 6970M with 2048 MB of video ram.

2. While I can get the game to run full screen, I can only do so with minimal video settings within the game to be able to play it at all, and even then performance is questionable, with some lag and major pop-up problems (likely due to the fact that the video settings are forced to be so low to even run it).

3. In the past, on my old 2009 MacBook Pro I've been able to play the game with much higher video settings with no problem in Boot Camp, yet in Parallels 6 there seems to be an issue.

4. I purchased Parallels to play this game on my new computer, hoping to avoid installing boot camp. Having done so without researching prior was perhaps a mistake, though I had read in the past that Parallels handled games quite well, and given that my Mac is topped up I didn't think there'd be an issue.

5. What exactly is preventing Parallels from running this game versus other games which it apparently runs fine?

6. How often does Parallels optimize games for its software?

7. Short of installing Boot Camp, or non-Parallels software to run the game (home brew offered on the STO forums, which I won't touch), what solutions may there be to run this game properly on a 2011 iMac with the above configuration?

Thank you for any assistance you may provide.