I can paint my own ships, so no thank you.

Signs point to yes:

Personally, as a new player, its pretty confusing how many of the upgrades which people indicate as vital for certain ships, don't come with those ships, and it can be a bit overwhelming that really a recommended purchase order very much is the order of release including a lot of packs which arnt even from your faction of choice. So a nircly repacked wave of repaints would be great... But on the other hand I completely understand why they are as they are. And as long as people don't mind me flailing around with comparatively uncompetitive and outdated lists for quite a while I can still have fun, and my poorly flown ties are still making a few kills and winning an occasional game.

Having arrived to XWing via D&D attack wing, I'm impressed how much easier it is for new players for an older product. D&D seems to have major issues with artificial rarety, unclear roles for many units, and generic wonkiness between various sets balance.

As a fairly new player who has difficulty obtaining necessary upgrades that work best with particular ships, I think there is a market for repaint expansions which have no actual content update.

For example, a Top of Worlds expansion for each faction each year. Each pack contains:

• 2 small ships or 1 large ship in a repainted paint scheme (possibly of the winner's choice of paint scheme, with FFG being allowed to veto certain choices (stuff they were planning to release already, graphic obsenity, etc), does not need to be a ship in the winner's list if the winner choses) and plastic stands and bases.
• 15 to 20 of the most represented upgrade cards used by the faction at Worlds focusing first on upgrades that have not been included with ships from that faction.
• Write ups on the top X (4? 8?) squadrons along with tips and strategies on how to play them.
• Some necessary tokens used by the upgrade cards (Ion, Stress, Bomb templates, etc).
• Released a few months to half a year after worlds (after the 1st quarter wave).

This Top of Worlds can be updated each year.

An expansion like this allows:

• newbies to get necessary upgrades to take part in competitive tournaments more easily, and more confidently.
• more bragging rights for winners of the top event of the game.
• appeals to collectors due to it's limited nature, doesn't force players who don't want to buy more this particular ship to buy it as nothing is actually new other than the ship's paint job.
• low strain on FFG's current release cycle (no R&D cost, only marketing, production and logistics; no change in FFG's business model as the product is not a complete playable product (no ship cards or ship bases - maybe it includes a dial however), lower parts count allows the product to be available at a resonable price despite the limited run status)

What do you guys think?

As a fairly new player who has difficulty obtaining necessary upgrades that work best with particular ships, I think there is a market for repaint expansions which have no actual content update.

For example, a Top of Worlds expansion for each faction each year.

Actually I can see quite a few ppl getting more than 1 of each, but the other problem is that FFG doen't really have any experience doing something like this (all their products are continous run products). I do games, so I understand licensing can be tedious - but its really not that terrible - production within 6 months is much more challenging than the licensing really. Estimating production qty, pricing the product etc is also going to be challenging.