A constructive response to the Design Fireside Chat

Your point about the cost of scrapping gear for zinbiddles, impulse, grydas and droid brains in the future will be somewhat negated by

"We’ve heard the concerns about splitting focus between increasing relic levels on older characters to account for Relic Delta while still wanting to pursue newer characters. With our upcoming release, we will be changing how players get and invest in new characters. More details to come on that later, but the relevant portion for Relic Delta is this: You will be progressing through gear tiers and lower relic levels without needing to use gear or relic materials, which frees up those resources to be spent on older characters." 

Without knowing exactly how they plan to do this, it's hard to say how it will affect us with the Jawa. My thoughts have been that gear levels will be tied to stars going forward and that increasing your stars levels you up instead of gear.