Well, if any of you are interested, this thread inspired me to focus my frustration on finishing a
simple expansion onto the Beginner Box I've been working on since I opened it. The quick start rules look great. My old project was called BattleStrike, but I scraped that and about started over.
All it does:
1 - Add a simplified heat scale without changing weapon stats
2 - Add pilot hits caused by head hits and ammo explosions from heat
3 - Add an abstract critical hit system using the standard chart with Alpha Strike-ish results
4 - Expand on terrain (Just threw in Depth 1 water, level changes, rough terrain, and partial cover)
5 - (Optional) Add physical attacks, either do one of those or fire weapons, all in the weapons attack phase.
I'm over trying to make suggestions on the base game. It's a losing battle.