My guesses on some of the skins/ship stuff:
Pilots are seen during loading screens and multi lobbies, similar to Modern Warfare 2019 (that has soldiers [your team] walking around with guns up in lobbies, then during the opening cinematics before games start as they come out of vans or helicopters), translating to a lineup similar to what is in the trailer of 5 pilots standing together, then loading up into ships as they leave for a loading screen, some sort of camera pan of everyone before the game starts. You still dont see your pilot for like 95% of actual gameplay, but it's still there for others to see if they get close or in those non-flying moments.
They're going to go the season pass (free + premium) route, with rank-ups for skins and decals for ships and pilots. "Completing" a pass would result in a new ship. We've got TIE Phantom, TIE Striker, two classes of TIE Advanced, then on the rebel side you've got the B-Wing, ARC-170s reused from the Clone Wars, E-Wing, Z95 Headhunter, captured version of TIE Fighter, etc. Drip feeding new ships gives them time to balance and gives players time to get used to everything. If they make seasons roughly 4-6 weeks and have one republuc and one Imperial ship per season, you're looking for at least four seasons/six months of content right there with previously established ships.
Hell, they could even go for some sort of paid expansion for a 3rd faction of Scum and Villainy (bounty hunters) or Thrawn's Ascendency.
Basically, for ship choice and ability, I'm looking at the X-Wing miniatures tabletop game for inspiration. Tons and tons of options out there.
