I will start a new theme for us during our store casual gameplay nights: Tiered play. In short, you have 4 tier points. Two points will get you a figure of Tier one class (think Thraws, Vader, most spectres, Han, ...), one point will get you a tier 2 figure and one point will get you a power command card. Most figures and command cards are free.

What figures would you consider being Tier 1 and Tier 2 and what command cards should cost points?

sometimes I would flat out ban all tier-1 units just for fun, I want to see elite Stormtroopers shooting at Obi-Wan

Yes, I like that too and its a very good idea to use theaficionado list. I have been playing a lot (pretty much all of them for the last two months) with a lot of sub par deployments and command cards during various game nights where I have been supplying all the squads. I really feel that it is a lot more fun then playing just tier one bands to win.