I can see a capital ship with different fighter escorts making up an expansions.

I think that this is the better route to take with EPIC scale fighting. I'm waiting on the imperial ship(s) to be spoiled at Gencon and then I'm not sure I will go with EPIC play.

I would have gone more for EPIC play if they had released an Imperial and a Rebel EPIC at the same time. They unbalanced that release and I play Imperial for my group and I am the main purchaser of X-wing stuff. They should have made the EPIC ships faction interchangeable. I think FFG may have painted themselves into a corner on this.

I felt no rush to pick up the EPIC ships (aside from the transport which had too much packed into it to not get).

If they put out two Empire ships and stop Epic at that I would be happy. If they bring out more Huge ships (after the suspected Imperial 2 at Gencon) with crew/cards good for tournament play I'll be annoyed.

I am interested in Armada and will see how the gameplay works via videos.

It won't be for everyone but I'm pretty happy with the news we get to play with star destroyers

Unpainted fighters are not an issue it's not gonna be much work to add some grey to the ties.

Personally im happy to be able to paint the squads if they do come unpainted. I can then paint my tiny squad ships in any fashion i wish. Plus it will be nice to have different painted attack squads on the table so everyones fleet will look different