When designing casual scenarios to play between friends very often I assign pilot upgrades (Predator, Determination, etc) to named pilots without the "skill" icon, cost +1 point.

Your opinion? I thinks it works well.

I think for casual games, do whatever makes the game enjoyable for everyone.

Of course. But perhaps the extra cost is too high. Perhaps +0.5 pts per card, FRU. I think some named pilots ( Y wing, just to select a few ) really need that option

We'll the game attempts to be balanced as printed.

But for casual games, whatever is fun. Personally I like 200 point battles.

I say go for it. Sounds great! I also try to develop scenarios where unappreciated pilots shine, too.

Although it eats another upgrade slot there is the Astromech that gives ships without the EPT one for 1 point. By that measure giving a free slot for 1 point is cheap but in casual scenarios you already can do pretty much anything.

I'd watch out for exploitative combinations, but for casual play this sounds perfectly fine to me.

For my current campaign I got going, the highest PS pilot in the roster is the squadron leader and automatically gets squad leader as an EPT even if the EPT slot is filled.

Other campaign variants may have modifications/multiple modifications or EPTs based on XP or other concerns.

Squad Leader is an expensive upgrade to actually use because it costs a ship its action and often times you want those high PS using their actions for themselves.

I know Major Juggler has all his math based point fixes out there somewhere if you look for them.

iirc he uses them for his home/non-tournament games. if you can get your friends/gaming partners/whoever to agree to them go for it

There's a few who should have EPT and don't because of short sighted design. (Let's not excuse it here, its not okay.)

Arvel, Horton Salm, Jendon and Kagi.

They didn't want Shuttles barrel rolling off EH.