Also?
Don't let people put you off farming Phoenix to relatively high gear tiers. It takes a lot of work, but a g11 Phoenix squad makes their ships fantastic - two of the best ships you can get, even at the end game. The down side is that you need to gear 3 toons per ship. It's a lot of resources, but it's MUCH easier to dominate fleet than it is to dominate the Squad Arena.
Phoenix + Bounty Hunters (which then gets you Han's Falcon) should be your early ship priorities, and that of course influences your early toon priorities.
I don't want to play the game for you, and you're free to leave Phoenix at g8 if you like, (and all the advice above about matching 5 toons from the same faction or that benefit from the same leadership ability is still important) but g10-11 Phoenix in the mid-game and g11-12 Phoenix in the end game will help a lot in Fleet, and that will get you an amazing number of crystals for use in all the other areas of the game.
Lesson: Just because a toon isn't a great toon on its own, doesn't mean it can't be a great toon either with the right leader or when piloting the right ship.