The metagame is not healthy. One, there is a prevalence of attanni lists that warp the meta, and two, a lack of imperial lists.
With the title, i suggest step 1 of the changes needed to make the metagame healthy.
Issue 1: Scum prevalence can be boiled down to two reasons: Jumpmaster is undercosted, and Attanni on big ships provides too good of a support ship.
Historically, FFG won't revise ships themselves. However, making small changes to upgrade cards has a track record. Therefore, the suggested solution is:
Solution 1: "Attanni mindlink now reads small ships only. "
Note that this solution, even if it looks like a good compromise right now, won't solve the issue of JM5k, so FFG needs to make more upgrades that read "can't equip to JM5k/large ships". Fortunately, it is feasible design-wise to keep JM5k around. FFG just needs to make sure every card passes the "deadeye" test.
Issue 2: Lack of competitive imperial lists, unless there is one OP list, which then makes the meta unhealthy and gets nerfed.
Reason 1: Imperials need OP stuff to be viable. FFG designs OP stuff with a high risk. If said stuff is not OP, nothing changes and imperials continue being underpowered. If said stuff is OP, it leads to a single archetype dominating the meta, which leads to an unhealthy meta, which leads to a nerf.
The problem with imperials is that they needed op stuff to be viable, and when removed of those tools, it becomes clear how underpowered they are. Imperial lists were boiled down to palp + x7 + filler, or triple x7. Imperials have had spikes of OP stuff: prenerf cloak, palp (not that op prenerf, but may become an issue with future design), prenerf x7 (OP), tie/sf(not OP). It is either hit of miss with those spikes, and those spikes are needed in the first place since imperials don't have anything unique to them. Those spikes lead to players playing exclusively the OP stuff, which appears unhealthy since almost the same archetype is repeated over and over.
Reason 2: No diversity in viable ship costs, no unique mechanic or upgrade category to imperials.
Imperials have strong ship builds at around 33 points, namely any ace or a palp shuttle. This makes other point costs not that viable, since they won't fit with the other decent aces (exceptions are whisper deci and tie swarm, which shows how healthy diversifying costs can be). Also, as discussed in another thread, imperials lack anything unique to them.
Introducing an imperial-only mechanic would solve those issues. And FFG, subconsciously, has been implementing those on a limited level. Thus, the abundance of titles for underpowered stuff. But that is not enough (every title other than x7 or royal), enough (royal guard tie) or it is too good (x7). It is too hard design-wise to be patching what is ultimately, a Frankenstein monster .
Solution 2a:
FFG and/or the community, needs to come up with a flavor for imperials only, one that will rise the overall power level of imperials, and be unique to imperials. This mechanic needs to make point costs more diverse, and this will break the power spikes the imperials are ultimately doomed unless something this different is implemented. Flavor-wise, imperials are known for having high tech, training, resources and commanders.
-Release diverse ship costs. Since there is a lot below 30, add stuff above 30, avoid multiples or 30 or 35. Don't be afraid to release a 60 or 80 pt imperial ship.
-Game-wide effects or stuff that can be added to most ships:
Within current rules of the game:
A) Admirals: Game-wide effects that need a crew slot. May need a minimum ship size/cost.
Crew (Grand Admiral Thrawn): You may look at the opponent's movement dials anytime.
B) Admirals that give you cards (kylo and rex style)
Academy Training: Title. Imperial only. After you move, you can discard this card to turn your ship 180 or perform a barrel roll or boost action.
Formation tactics: When you have 3 non-unique ships in range 1 of each other, do X.
Pursuit tactics: Choose an enemy ship. Add one die when attacking it with non-unique ships. (not that broken with tie swarm if it requires a clunky admiral, or has to be discarded, etc.)
C) Experimental tech: Like cloaking device, adds some cool effect to the game. But keep it imperial only, please.
Experimental Hyperdrive. Modification. Imperial only. Instead of being deployed at the start of the game, you may deploy this ship anywhere in any facing (or maybe limited to facing your opponent straight or not past obstacles) at the end of the activation phase.
Experimental TIE. Modification. TIE only. Imperial only. Unique (to avoid having like 50 ships). Reduce the cost of this ship by 10. If this ship is destroyed, you lose the game.
Experimental Death Laser: Modification. Instead of attacking, choose an enemy ship inside the firing arc of other friendly ships equipped with this upgrade. Combine the attack dice of this ship and those friendly ships when making the attack, then discard all copies of this upgrade from all of your ships.
D) Emperor's Edict: rules-changing card.
Edict: Imperial Funds: When you play as imperial, you have 10 additional points to spend.
I like this solution as it forces a more diverse point cost and gives and edge without changing anything too much.
Edict: Research Grant: Upgrade cards cost (1) less, to a minimum of (0).
Edict: Recruitment Grant: Non-unique Pilots cost (1) less.
So basically, in order to not change stuff too much, we can have admirals that give you powerful effect cards (tactics, academy training, etc), and imperial only powerful experimental technology, all of those working to buff most existing imperial ships or creating new competitive archetypes. If a bolder step is required, the +10 point solution is one i like (maybe the new standard is matching lists to a 9 tie swarm).
Solution 2b: Do to the Empire what FFG does with rebels and scum
Add more synergy between imperial ships. As seen with rebels (biggs, sabine crew) and scum (jm5k, attanni), hope no ever increasing synergy links become broken or have the potential to become so broken they limit future design. Make and them more rebel and scum-like, add more cross-faction stuff (like boba fett, and some "rebels" spoilers). If every faction is OP, then no faction will appear to be OP.
Solution 2c: Keep patching the Frankenstein monster
An imperial-only slot available to all non-unique ships. (So this doesn't make strong aces more powerful than they need to be)
Like the categories "modification" or "title", this does not require the ship to explicitly have this slot in its upgrade bar. (This, like "titles", makes them backwards compatible)
So title-like, they might as well be titles. Apply more titles to every ship.
TL;DR:
FFG, Please add the restriction "small ships only" to attanni mindlink. As for imperials, give them around 10 extra points for their lists or make imperial-only and imperial-wide upgrade cards, because selectively making OP stuff for imperials does not work. Proposals are an 'admiral' crew flavour or an 'experimental' modification flavour.