don't ignore fleet.
It's just plain easier to earn significant crystals in fleet starting from where you are now compared to starting where you are in squad arena.
There are several Rebel ships you can earn quickly, then the slow grind to bring Ackbar up to 7*, then you get Chimera. That's important because your Thrawn is already relic'd. The alternative is bringing Tarkin to relic while continuing to ignore your rebel fleet.
In either case you need to use your Galactic War currency to finish your Geonosian ships & then take your Geos to g12, minimum. Ideally Spy would be relic'd at or above r3 (mine is r5), and Sun Fac would be at least g12+3. It's true that Geos are easily beaten in squad arena when left on defense, but they're actually surprisingly good as an offensive team against a large number of opponents. With both zetas on my r4 Brood Alpha I can beat Revan/Malak squads. (They debuff themselves, then Spy whacks them even harder.) All of which is to say that you should consider any gear on your Geos to be a good investment. Take them up as high as you can reasonably get them, and do that before chasing a GL. The extra income from your Arena ranks is going to make the GL farm easier & quicker. And, as I've said, it's easier to score serious levels of crystals (200+) in fleet than it is in squad.
Of course, if you can get 200 crystals in squad (rank #20 or better) without a GL, you can go that route. I'm not trying to say Squad isn't important. I'm just saying it's easier to do ships first & then use that to help squad than the other way round.
Assuming you go for fleet first, you can & should continue to improve Hound's Tooth, but Hyena is even more important. Meanwhile, every single bit of GET 2 should go to the Malevolence until it reaches 7*. G12 geonosians + 7* Hyena + 5* Mal with r3 Grievous should get you top 20 fleet arena rewards quite easily & top 10 with a bit of effort. Continued improvements in Mal & Grievous + adding a 7* Vulture will get you #1 in fleet on a daily basis, if you're willing to fight 4-5 times per day on your climb.
Your biggest handicap will be GET2 production, which is another reason to focus on Geonosians: you need a good guild that's organized and helping each other to score well in dark side Geo TB. In order for those guilds to want you as a 1.7M gp player, you have to make yourself attractive to them. Since Geos are one of the key squads here (Revan/Malak is another, Grievous + droids is the third), boosting your Geos is something that will have not just personal value but guild value. If you're willing to offer things the guild needs, they're more likely to consider you a teammate more valuable than your GP rating. This gets you a guild with better TB performance, which gets you better GET2 rewards, which gets you that Malevolence ASAP, which then builds the foundation for everything that comes after. A regular crystal income is crucial to be able to fast-farm key toons, buy hard-to-get gear (I'm looking at you, Kyrotech), and take full advantage of double-drops & other special events.
So, yes. everything everyone else tells you is important is probably important, but you'll want an integrated plan for all the different stores & all the different energies, and a big part of that is boosting crystal income early. Seeing an integrated plan for boosting fleet rank & TB rewards & how that requires a good guild, and how all of that is related through toons like the Geonosians is the kind of far-sighted planning that will really help you in a game where week-by-week strategies simply aren't enough given how long it takes to achieve the most valuable characters & rewards.
That said, the single most important consideration should always be fun. If you're not having fun, you'll just quit again & your careful plan will be worthless because you'll never reach the rewards at the end of it.
So I can tell you how to market yourself to a guild & what you should expect the guild to offer in exchange. I can tell you what ships are gear-efficient or easy to farm. And, of course, anyone else on here can tell you the same things. But if you're ever stuck between two worthwhile options & you're not sure which to choose, the final deciding factor should never be efficiency. It should always be what you think will be the most fun. It's a game after all, right? If you're not having fun, it's just a waste of time.