Crimes Against the Republic Era Battle Requirements

Yeah, I'm not usually one for all the negativity on these forums, but I kind of agree here.  I'm not typically a whale, but I did with LV clones (and Ahsoka before that...), and the Knightfall event is pretty much the opposite of encouragement to whale on this format going forward. Besides whaling, I've dedicated farming, etc. to gathering everything to beef the LV team up (3 - 9's and 2 - 8's), but we can't even use our own LV.  I took Appo and Scorch to R9 blowing through any stash I had, and I can't even get halfway through the last tier, and the tiers before that were a pain the entire way.  Rewards are nice if you can get them (almost nobody in my guild can), but I'm worried this is their test for a new format in place of Assault Battles eventually.  All this temporary stuff (datacrons, Era Battles, raid omicrons, etc.) that eventually destroy the investment you've made is a trend I'd personally not like to see more of.