Good thoughts in the OP. I hope you are correct that all the Flash events between now and the end of June are Phoenix. That would help quite a bit with the gear crunch (and the crunch of getting them geared up for the Thrawn event).
When the event first dropped, I admit I was mistaken about the utility of the Phoenix squad. Seeing them in action in the event (and in some of the videos posted) it's clear that while they don't deal out a ton of damage, they can certainly take hits and keep coming. And they are quite fun to play with some very interesting strategies and synergies.
