How to gage the value of a new character with datacrons?

This question is for some of the bigger spenders who choose which characters to invest in or not. How do you determine if a character is worth the investment now that datacrons have entered the game?

Datacrons for the new units would make it difficult to know how truly powerful the unit is, and datacrons not for the new unit would also diminish its power. Or are the recycled datacrons the new way to invest and character kits are irrelevant now?