I rolled a new imp char on TEH and had some really good games in my novadive equivalent (sorry, dont usually play as imp so the name escapes me) with next to no upgrades, really enjoyed hunting down gunships, getting some burst on bombers and flitting between bases. I use my novadive in some matches depending on what the other team are using but the starter version certainly felt like it was lacking quite a lot compared to my partially upgraded one, i personally think it felt rubbish in comparison.

I quite liked earning my ships, ive only been playing GSF for 3 weeks, have my FF and bomber now, enjoying owning all the people that killed me so much in my first few matches. 10k fleet req would have been wasted on me when i first started and the rubbish starter ships made me learn to play quicker.