Realistically Disadvantages should be weighted and I thought I remembered that there were some disadvantages, although they may have been in the companion book (just looked and I don't actually see any disadvantages in it)
with that said, Disadvantages should not be easy to handwave away, but should be something that keeps popping up on a regular basis.
for instance an enemy, shouldn't be a small annoyance for example. a 1 point enemy, should be weighted based on how big of an area they can harass you in, and how aggressive they are about going after you. to use an example in a campaign that mostly takes place on solaris IV I could totally see another mechwarrior, tech, stablemaster or similar being a 1 point disadvantage, but they are each going to have different methods of trying to get you and how often they come after you. the Rival mechwarrior is likely to be running into you fairly often but it isn't going to be as hard to deal with their actions.
a tech is going to be more apt to arrange sabotage or bad parts type issues. the stablemaster is more likely to come up with larger sabotage / more difficult issues to get out of, but are more likely to be less frequent things to pop up. also the stablemaster is more apt to have connections to generate a wider reach to keep harassing you (if you leave solaris)
