Empire needs more healers/cleansers!

I concur brother! :) Everything you mentioned is spot on. Only thing I'd also like to point out is that with the duality typing of Palp and Vader, any changes to specifically address (nerf) them happens to also pour over into HEAVILY affecting true empire from being effective arena meta's. Good example is looking at all the mechanics of the new Chewie. I know he's supposed to be a Palp/DN specific hard counter but inadvertently it b*&tH slaps DT in the face. everything Chewie does attacks three of the most viable toons to run in arena atm. The only one who's not seriously hit is Thrawn (thank goodness).

But alas, that is a different tangent, similar only in the respect that there's validity in the notion that the "pure empire" faction, less sith influence and imperial trooper interdependence has room for improvement.
Heck, maybe some additional toons (which I'm not saying I want necessarily) would help alleviate the dependence on the previously mentioned staples.