Why wasn´t the ISD chosen as the starter kit ship? The game has yet to take off where I live (I´m still on the fence myself). I imagine a lot less people could resist with that amazing looking, iconic monster included as a launch piece.
Probably several reasons, but possibly 1) the ISD is considerably larger than the VSD model so it would be very difficult to fit an ISD AND Rebel forces in the box - considering that there would need to be significantly more rebels needed to counter it.
2) to give people a reason to want to buy expansion packs. Seriously, if they put the ISD in the core then how many Imperial players would buy anything else?
3) Depth of mechanics/Fine tuning. By getting the smaller ships working right first, it has given FFG more time to work on the cards, upgrades and abilities of the epic huge ships we are waiting for. I have no doubt they would be disappointing if they tried to have them crammed in the core set without having other upgrades and such that we got in the core/wave 1 to make them even more awesome. (like Motti, as someone said).