I am Loving that FFG has made the ships different intramodel. At first I thought it was just going to be die color and upgrade differences, representing the same ship with different armament. But the Rebel Fleet article reveals they're also up for changing the number of dice (including the anti-squadron armament) and command values. That's AWESOME! It makes each model truly flexible and unique before it's kitted out with upgrades and crew. So far they haven't touched hull and shield values but that's both less necessary and seems at least possible given all the other flexibility they're building in.

Plus, ship titles and crew/upgrades seem to be actual modifications and just not additions to the base. This is going to make understanding the strengths of each ship, combinations, and upgrades much more important. I'm excited.

They've given us a lot of flexibility in fleet building. I'd expect them to release even more upgraded ship cards many waves down the line to bring obsolete or broken ships back into whatever current meta it is (think Tie-Advanced/x1 in X-Wing)

I agree, it does seem to be well thought out to give us lots of options when building fleets.