I think they were a little too worried about adding to the bomb meta with this ship, and this pilot in particular. I guess that's a legitimate concern, but I'm thoroughly disappointed with Crimson Leader. His ability takes away from the ship's already horrible offense, at a less than useful PS, and on a chassis that can't take advantage of its arc or radial bombs very well. They were quite careful to use the word spend instead of cancel to make sure it didn't trigger with Accuracy Corrector, not to mention it is laughably easy for an opponent to roll off the condition before it has a chance to trigger. Were they expecting this to be a meta breaker? On paper he seems to be a damage sponge and an action vampire at best.

Crimson and Cobalt Leader seem to be designed around flying 3 Resistance Bombers, I can't see any other scenario where their abilities will trigger regularly.

Crimson Specialist is my pick of the bunch. Whilst still hard to fly, at least his ability makes use of the large base, and he's a low enough PS to act as a decent blocker with or without bombs using, deflective plating or engine upgrade. I think we'll see Specialist and the generics getting more board time than the higher PS pilots.