The Era System and Datacrons: Is there any room left for mid-spenders

Spending is always a problem.  I used a decent chunk of my crystal stash to get to the second round of the maul event and to bump Vader to 5* to get more of the upgrade material.  It is to the point that I'm not doing daily energy refreshes or farming datacrons to try to build it back up.  I feel if they dropped a new capital ship right now I would be screwed because I couldn't upgrade it and thus would lose out in ship arena.  I think it is a bit pointless to spend money on phone games because they can disappear over night.  I'm surprised how long this game has lasted based on several other games I have played in the past that have come and gone.

As for spending, it doesn't seem like you can truly advance without spending a ton.  I can only imagine what they are going to do for the after the era is over to finish the maul event.  I see opponent after opponent in GAC with like 30 datacrons at level 6+.  I only won my last round because my opponet seemed to forget to finish his attacks.  Every team had a minimum of level 7 datacron and he had enough in his inventory to put the same on every attacking team.  It was a pretty pathetic 250-150 final score.  I can't imagine what I would have to do to get Kyber 1.  I float between Kyber 2 and 3.

The new era mechanic really doesn't help things since there is so little communication.  It would be helpful to know if each new marquee gives out material based on lowest level of previous toons or if it is just a set amount.  Giving out only currency from halfway through tier 7 is also a terrible mechanic.  I rather have upgrade material than the ability to buy tokens or g10 material.  Bringing the era toons right to g13 is a much bigger help than a little extra era currency.

Additionally, the upgrade currency for era toons seems to be lacking a bit.  I have had to buy packs several times just to be able to continue to upgrade to stay competitive in colesium.  I will probably now end up with extra since upgrading past level 75 is very slow.