Comparing the two is perfectly reasonable.

They are both dirt cheap fighters which throw 3 dice and have Swarm.

Hard to get much more comparable than that.

I think you misunderstand Zepnick's point - he's not saying that they're not comparable, but that comparing them on their own isn't going to produce the most useful conclusions. It's much more interesting to compare how they fit into each faction's play style.

The way I see it, there is no point in comparing the two in a vacuum.

Each faction offers diverse fighters that result in completely different types of synergies.

There will be Headhunters protected by X-wings and Jan, and there will be Tie Fighters buffed by Dengar and Howlrunner.

I think there's an interesting note there that the Rebels' squadron synergies boost the defensive capabilities of squadrons, where Imperial synergies boost their attack. It fits completely with the theme, but it also means that they need to be used differently on the board - buffed TIEs work better if thrown at the enemy to do as much damage as possible, where the supported Z-95s will be able to last longer whilst tying up enemy fighters.

Exactly. And escort's stock just rose considerably with the introduction of headhunters.

Personally i hold reds a lot higher than blues for anti-squad.

However, blues are more likely to Accuracy unique squadron tokens, which can be good

Also Toryn Farr wont help them (reroll 1 blue die) and ive come to freakin' love that officer card lol.

i think the only reason i wont run a swarm of these things is because i really dont wanna buy 2-3 more packs....

In practice from games thus far the red dice seem a lot swingier and a lot more reliant on Swarm/Blount than TIEs are on Swarm/Howlrunner to get consistent results. They can also really struggle to handle aces due to the low odds of getting an Accuracy.

Speed 3 vs. TIEs is a definite detriment. Getting punched first sucks when you have 3 HP.

Red single bomber dice is useless 5/8 of the time. Not reliable at all there.

7 points seems fair. They like having X-Wings or (less synergistically) other more menacing squadrons to hide behind.

I don't think you're going to see a mob of Z-95s as a standard fighter squadron compliment in higher tier fleets. In addition to other squadrons they do just fine, though. TIEs can be used similarly (triggering Swarm off TIE Advanced and/or TIE Bombers and the like) but they work fine as a mob too.