To be fairly honest, I don't think there's a meta for ships.
But if you want to know, I agree AA is not that good. He's used by people who stared him and geared him as the rebels meta is quite a big deal in Arena, but in Ships, he worth nothing more than the other.
I love using Fives ship who gives TM to the opponent while I'm using Mace immunity. Plus, you can make a pretty good combo with Fives and Maul plus Mace, you put Taunt on Fives, use protection gain and retribution on him with Maul ability and then you tank all the way down the other ships, if you're in danger you can give protection with JC, etc... And speed up, evasion up and defense up on your entire team with Plo, Ahsoka and JC is quite fun to use.
Clones synergies between each other and the more you use republic ships, the better you get bonuses.
