Ok I can give you that the fuselage does look inspired by the P-61 but that's all it has going for it.
It still looks meh.
The hull and the giant engines both. But the ARC has grown on me. I initially didn't like it, but the more I looked at it the more I found that I did like it, and now I think it's pretty sweet-looking. It's basically what they should have made instead of the K-Wing for the heavy bomber in X-Wing, but whatevs. I'll never understand why people prefer silly EU ships to ones that were actually in Star Wars movies, but to each her own.
My reasoning for my preference of EU craft over PT stuff is the EU is the continuation of the star wars trilogy.
They are created to fill a functional roll in books, RPG's and various video games.
Unlike the PT craft they were not (for the most part) designed to make lots of toys.
That and I tend to for like odd looking craft.
I always liked the Y over the X and the B over the A,X and Y. But that's just me.
Despite what GL will tell us, the PT are not part of the star wars trilogy, only just in name.
They don't look or feel anything like the originals.
As much as I do like the N-1 (and I do) having it on the table with X-wings and Tie's would just legitimize Jar Jar Binks and little Anny "Oooo lets try this, now what does this button do?" ship goes boom good guys win
After JJ makes his mess then perhaps we could start seeing PT craft