Are Conquest Trials difficulty changed?

The impression I'm getting from several people is that the difficulty for easy and normal and their rewards; do not compare well with hard mode difficulty and the rewards you get there.

Do your best to complete your run and move on to hard difficulty as soon as possible. Getting to the end of normal should be more of a priority than getting the best crate you can.  Once you get onto hard, the difficulty is quite predictable and possibly not that much harder than normal mode.

Make sure you stay on the gold path when it ends in a data-disk node.  The gold path is pointless when it ends with a jawa node though.  With the gold path you get much better data-disks (as a rule).  Even if it's slightly tougher, it's better in the long run.

Pick up good data-disks; they make a big difference.  Currently Leader's Resolve, Zealous Ambition, Guard & Penetrate and Weak Spot are the picks of the bunch, in my opinion.  If you stay on the gold path, you shouldn't have much problem having blues and greens of the above data-disks.