Why now?

To summarize, you're whining at CG to "make the game the way I tell you". 

I didn't mind Skeleton Crew. It wasn't amazing, but it was fun and light. I'm excited with the announced pirates and looking forward to having a team of them.

The pirate faction is long overdue and really opens up more characters that they can bring into the game compared to other factions we have (Geonosian, Tusken, Jawa) and some creatures don't even have a faction, unless that's changed since I last looked (Wampa, Ugnaught). There are a lot of characters in this universe and they're trying to cater to all of the players, not just one group. This might be an effort to reach some of the younger players. You certainly don't need to invest in any of these characters. No one is forcing you to play or support this game. If you're unhappy stop playing. If you don't like the new characters focus on your current roster. 

 totally agreed dude you're not required to buy characters it's not like they're making you do it if you don't want to just don't buy it dude

All this whining about pirates is made even funnier by the fact that since the raid went live, teams have been figured out that will get a guild max box scores without even touching the Pirate faction. 

or it could be people are complaining about one of the central activity's in the game having a design premise that never for a moment included the ip it was based on

Gosh, the legacy raids, where all characters were permitted, must have had you people popping aneurysms left and right. SLKR fighting ancient Sith? Luke Skywalker vs Grievous? Bad Batch attacking Jabba's rancor? How about all the non-lore matchups in TB? How were Resistance members participating in the Battle of Geonosis? Don't even get me started on all the weird teams in conquest. Barriss Offee teaming up with Starkiller and Visas Marr? That's not what happened in the lore!!1!

In a word: lol

Uhh...pretty sure if you mined this whole forum, you wouldn't find anyone ever asked for the pirate faction or thought it was something that needed to be added to the game to make it complete. I've seen Crimson Sun mentioned, Pyke Syndicate, etc. But not pirate. 

Others points are pretty clear - there are many more obvious routes to go with factions and especially GL's than pirates.  The only places that pirates really ever factored were S3 of Mando and Skeleton Crew.

The problem is more so how CG are locking the raid behind all the latest shinies. It’s not very F2P friendly unless you’re already at the very top

Max score teams for the first tier (300k points):

Tarkin solo

Nest solo

Sana/Hondo duo

Trash JV with the right modding and strategy

That's 1.2mln points that don't require any of the new characters. All of the characters above are accelerated. Tarkin and Nest are super old and only require 100 kyros each to bring to relic level. 

Let's say you have a small account and kyrotech is a big barrier for you. Get Tarkin and Nest to R5. That's 600k you can contribute to the guild raid score. 600k x 50 = 30mln guild score.

Hell, let's say even Enfys Nest is too titanic of an effort to make for you. Tarkin only. 

Tarkin is a GL requirement (for LV). His shards are in Galactic War shipments, Squad Arena shipments, and Fleet shipments and probably other shipments too. He is one of the most easily accessible characters in the game. He only 100 kyrotech. Get him to R5 and put speed/potency mods on. Get both of his zetas.

300k on the lowest tier. 50 x 300k = 15mln guild score.  

15mln = 2nd reward box (max mk1 tokens, includes mk2/3 tokens)

Tarkin + Nest = 30mln guild score

30mln = 4th reward box (max mk1 and 2 tokens, 1750 mk3)

If you are not willing to relic two super old characters for the guild raid, you are arguing in bad faith. There are very accessible options for even small accounts to put up a score for Order 66. You don't need the new characters at all.