I'm a 3 yr player that has thought about spinning up a second account just to see what the experience is today versus when I first started. Then I look at all the available characters and think "oh man, where would I even start."
I understand your point. There are a lot of characters. More importantly, there are a lot of options. One wrong move could send you spiraling into the arena abyss and cause frustration that results in no longer playing the game.
There's some generic advice I could give on progression strategies, but I'll save you the long version and provide the short. 1) stick to a plan. This game evolves over time and chances are if you invest in characters it will pay off in the long run. You can't meta chase in arena without spending money. So if you plan to spend, spend earlier. If you don't plan to spend, you'll simply have to wait out your shard's natural thinning out process to make arena more enjoyable. 2) there are a lot more useless characters today. Veterans had to farm Jawas for crit dmg mods and even Tusken Shaman was viable in tank raid because of how limited we were on powerful characters / team mechanics.
So I think the question is, how do you provide a little farming assistance given the taller character mountain to climb? I personally think they should increase the drop rate of receiving a full character in bronziums. It does two things, helps newer players lighten the farming burden for missing out on marquees and provides veterans more shard shop currency. This way you can start getting shards for obscure TB platoon fodder and I can buy more stun guns. Win win.