In my mind I'd just like to have some options for the more "merc" ships to switch factions- the Firespray in particular is one that I'd like to have in a Black Sun fleet that is mainly older Rebel designs.

An official pirate/ Black Sun faction would be very cool as well. There are a whole load of very cool ships in the EU that would be great for this. Cloakshapes, R-41 Starchasers, Zebras, Toscan 8q and the C-73 Tracker are just a few that come to mind. I would love to see FFG do these for a 3rd "Fringe" faction possibly with a couple more of the other freighters as well.

In the meantime, Shapeways has a lot of options for you to do an unofficial pirate fleet, including he shops that you mention.

I think that these homebrew things should be encourage, understanding that they won't be permitted in tournament play. I wonder if we might get a good forum discussion going that could vet the homebrew suggestions so as to at least get community recognition for pirate fleet rules.

I'm sure there are already a bunch of home rules out there floating around this forum and elsewhere on the internets. We might want to collect them and compare/contrast what's out there.

If you want other EU ships, Shapeways is a great option. There are some really good designers on their. I have bought some of Gosrics and Steve3ds stuff and all turns out pretty good. Mel Miniatures is another designer with good stuff. I find the easiest way to find stuff on Shapeways for this game is to search "1/270" and usually you can find all sorts of cool miniatures of EU ships.

Here is a link to pics of two of my Shapeways models. The first is Gosric's version of the Corporate Sector Authority IRD from the Han Solo Books. The second is Gosric's version of the Preybird fighter from the Specter of the Past Duology. Both are pretty cool - minus my humble painting skills- and are in my opinion very well designed.

http://s1168.photobucket.com/user/jambopirate/library/X-Wing%20Miniatures%20-%20CSA%20IRD-A

http://s1168.photobucket.com/user/jambopirate/library/X-Wing%20Miniatures%20-%20Preybird

Here is a link to pics of two of my Shapeways models. The first is Gosric's version of the Corporate Sector Authority IRD from the Han Solo Books. The second is Gosric's version of the Preybird fighter from the Specter of the Past Duology. Both are pretty cool - minus my humble painting skills- and are in my opinion very well designed.

http://s1168.photobucket.com/user/jambopirate/library/X-Wing%20Miniatures%20-%20CSA%20IRD-A

http://s1168.photobucket.com/user/jambopirate/library/X-Wing%20Miniatures%20-%20Preybird

Hey, those are pretty awesome.

I certainly think that Gosric's IRD-A is a lot better looking than the canon Legends look from the roleplaying book. But, given that the IRD-A was already visually developed, I wonder why he re-did it, rather than developing something that had never been pictured before.