The 3 will definitely depend on the rest of your squad. If you only have room for one, I'd take Soontir with Predator at 54 points. Duchess is almost as squishy but you can do device shenanigans with her, so she fills that role better than an arc-dodging ace, and cheaper. Bombs on her are amazing! I tried running her with 5th brother, didn't work as well as Fel with Predator. Whisper with Juke is pretty solid but for some reason not nearly as scary as Soontir. Echo or another phantom at that point level just won't do as good as Whisper, I'd rather take her without an EPT rather than any of the others with an EPT.

My meta has evolved slightly differently when it comes to Soontir. The most common upgrade for him is Outmanoeuver. It makes it easier to keep him at range 3 yet still use this upgrade. It also helps to make full use of him as a decoy in the early game. If he gets behind you at any stage then you know things are going to get rough.

Whisper with Darth Vader crew was amazingly difficult to deal with in my lst game. Vader crew currently clocks in at 14, so isn't really "budget", but he makes life a living **** for any list he is up against. Even still, (with current pricing) Whisper with Vader crew and Juke will run 70 points, which is the same as a naked Vader. It's good value.

I haven't played Imperials in 2.0 yet. Looking forward to try TIE Phantoms as well as TIE Interceptors the most just because it's been a long time since I've played them. I really like TIE Strikers and 2.0 won't change that. ?

Also, a typo in the OP's stats for the Phantom: it has 3 hulls now (not 2).